IFR70-14

A PPROVED FOR RELG'ASE - HISTORICAL COLLECTION DIVISION-HR70-14 DATE:-05-17-2012

THE SOVIET MISSILE BASE VENTURE IN CUBA

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/ I~)ate NOV19.

Prefatory Note

This isri' working paper of the DD/I Research Staff.It is a reconstruction of the Soviet missile base venture'in Cuba in 1962 (reflecting information available throughDecember 1963), with an Appendis which discusses the back-ground of the venture in 1961 and early 1962.

The conception of the missile base venture, in ourview, was radically defective, and the execution of it wasin some respects astonishingly inept. We have tried aboveall to discover why Khrushchev believed--throughout thecourse of the venture, from conception to retraction--thathis conduct was rational, i.e., why be concluded at leastuntil September that the United States would very probablyacquiesce, why he concluded until late October that theventure could be managed to his profit even if the UnitedStates did not acquiesce, and why he managed the ventureas he did during the week of the crisis in late October.

In preparing this study, we have not asked othersto contribute directly to our paper, but we have takenmuch profit from their wor

"ave afoaotit o! work of membersommunity outside CIA: we found particularly useful,

in the early stages of our study, a paper prepared duringthe crisis by the Policy Planning Couneil of the Departmentof State, another prepared shortly thereafter by IRA of the

Department of Defense, and various articles appearing inthe Department of State's monthly Sino-Soviet Affairs.

It seems to us impossible to write a definitivestudy of the missile base venture--one which would begenerally accepted as supplying the final answers to themany questions presented by the venture. With respect toalmost all questions of Soviet motivation, calculation, andinterpretations, two or more opinions are possible. We

' bave been struck, however, by the extent of agreement thatthere is among those who have been involved most heavilyin the examination of the venture--including those whohave been orking from different directions.

In this connection, we commend to our readers thestaff study--gust published--prepared by the Military Pro-gramming Branch of the Office of Research and Reports,Cuba, 1962: Ubrushohev's Miscalculated Risk. The twostudies--theirs and ours--b6th disouse such matters asSoviet objectives, the estimates of risks, the timing ofvarious decisions, and the reasons for retreat; and theyreach similar conclusions about these matters. However,the two studies are focused very differently. The ORRstudy collates and studies the hard facts of the build-up,which it presents in great detail, and it draws its prin-cipal conclusions from those facts. Our own paper setsthe venture in the context of Soviet foreign policy, espe-cially the record of Soviet confrontations with the UnitedStates, and it emphasises the Soviet reading of the Americanantagonist throughout the course of the venture. In otherwords, the two st4jIies consider much the same range ofquestions, but they concentrate on different bodies ofevidence. Thus we regard the papers as complementary, eachoffering additional material to the reader of the other,and each giving additional reasons for their similar con-clusions.

We have incorporated in this paper corrections andsuggestions from many sources. However, no one has beenasked for his formal concurrence in our paper, and no oneexcept ourselves can be held to account.

The DDI/RI would welcome additional comment on thispaper, addressed in this instance to either the Chief orthe Deputy Chief of the staff,

THE SOVIET MISSILE BASE VENTURE IN CUBA

SUMMARY ....:.............................................i

I. The Allure of the Bases, Early 1962...............1The Problems in the Background...................1The Mil-. 'ary Change .............................. 3The Political Change.............................6

*. Negotiations.................,....................8The Underdeveloped Areas........................12Cuba....,. ,.... . ... .. .... . ...... ,........,. 14The Chinese Challenge...........- ................ 16Summary of Allurements..........................18

II. The Chances of Success, Early 1962...............19The Record o U.S. Responses...................19The Plans for Management........................23Differences Among Soviet Leaders................30The Net Assessment .............................. 34

III. The Pro rsss of the Venture, April-August 1962...38Te rst Sa e, pr - une .....................38Soviet Negotiations with Castro...............38Related Problems .............................. 40Assessment of U.S. Intentions.................45

The Second Stage, July-August...................49First Elements of the Program. ................. 49Soviet Behavior...............................5lAssessment of U.S. Intentions.................52

Recapitulat .ion..................................54

IV. The Change in Expectations, September-October1 9 9........................................57Soviet Snd American Positions, Early September..57The President's 4 September Statement: The

First Change in xpeotations................58The Soviet Statement of 11 September..........63

The Big Change in Expectations..................66The President's Remarks of 13 September.......66Continuation of the Bulld-up..................69The Use of the Flat Lie.......................72Preparations for Imminent Discovery...........78

Recapitulation..................................80

V. The Week of the Crisis, 22-28 October 1962.......84The President's Speech and the Firet Response...84

The 2 October Speech.........." .............. 84The Soviet Statement of 23 October............86Other Soviet Responses........................89The Cuban Response ............................ 90

Soviet Kaneuvers and Khrushohev's Anxiety.......92'The NEyed to Prevent War.......................92

.. . The "Piratical" Quarantine....................94The Missile Bases.............. ".... . "."... ... .94Efforts to Get Negotiations.."................96The Cuba-tor-Turkey Proposition...............97Preparations for a Fast Backdown .............. 99The Implied Retreat, 26 Ootober..............100

The Long Weekend ............................... 104Khrushchev's 26 October Letter...............104Khrushchev's 27 October Letter...............104The President's Letter of 27 October.........111Ehrushchev's Capitulation, the 28 OctoberLetter ..... ............................... .113

Recapitulation. .......................... ..... 119

Appendiz.......................following separator sheet.

THE SOVIET MISSILE BASE VENTURE IN CUBA

Summary

This is a..lengthy summary of (1) the allure o theCuban missile."ase venture, as of early 1962, (2) Khru-shohev's assessment at that time of the chances of success,(3) the progress of the venture during the spring and sum-mer of 1982, (4) the management of the venture in Septemberand early October 1982, the period in which the strategicmissiles were being deployed and in which Ehrushcbev changedhis mind about the probable U.S. response, and (5) develop-ments during the critical week of 22-28 October.

The Allure of the Bases: Early 1962

When the missile base venture was being consideredin early 1962, by far the most important advantage seen byghrushchev in a successful veature was to be the effect ofthe bases in altering the balance of power between East andWest--partially redressing the imbalance in a militarysense, and perhaps more than redressing it in a politicalsense. The two sets of considerations--military and poll-tical--were bound together; the USSR would gain in bothsenses or in neither.

As tor the 'trategic considerations, even it no morethan 40 launchers were to be installed in Cuba, the USSRwould be increasing by more than 60 percent its strategicmissile capability against the United States. Moreover,this capability could be achieved much more quickly throughthe missile bases in Cuba than through the slow ICBD pro-gram in the USSR. Further, the missiles in Cuba would makemore dramatic the threat of sudden death to American cities.Finally, it the first installment of missiles were not suc-cessfully challenged, many additional launcbers could beinstalled if desired, along with large numbers of medium-range bombers and submarines.

If the change in the military balance of power tobe produced by the installatio of 40 or more launchersin Cuba was not sufficient in itself to make the ventureattractive, the addition of political gains would make avery powerful case. If the United States were too obtuse,faint-hearted-,.or indecisive to repel the challenge ofSoviet missile bases in Cuba, the Soviet assertion of moraland political'auperiority and the Soviet confidence in aneventual triumpb would seem to be justified. Moreover, ifthe Soviet cla1im to much superiority were to seem justified,there would in f act be a shift in the politicbi'Talance ofpower: the Uited gTitem itself would be increasinglydeterred from making effective responses elsewhere; thegenuine allies of the United States, whether governments orindividuals, would be greatly disheartened, and the nominalallies would move to a position of neutrality; the few pro-Soviet regimes in the underdeveloped areas would becomemore so, and at least some of the unaligned nations wouldshift to a pro-Soviet position; and eisting pro-Soviet andleftist estremist forces in all countries of the non-Com-muanist world would be greatly augaented and emboldened.

With respect to particular last-West issues, ofgreatest immediate importance, among the advantages of thebases, was the gain to be made, through threats or barter,on the status of the GD and Berlin. Of probably lesserbut considerable importance, over a longer term, was thepotential of the bases as a bargaining counter in negotia-tions on either "general and complete disarmament" orpartial measures, and on overseas bases; the Cuban baseswould dramatically focus attention on this latter issue, and,if U.S. bases were negotiable under Soviet pressure, thenthe United States would no longer be regarded as a reliableally. There ibuld be other important gains with respectto the underdeveloped areas, in that the bases would demon-strate the USBR's willingness to protect such countries andto help them to achieve their goals. further, the basesmight well help to control Cuba--in the sense of mahingCastro more responsive to Soviet wishes; and, if the venturesucceeded, the bases would help to protect Cuba. Finally,of great importance was the advantage to be gained by de-flating the Chinese challenge, both immediately and overthe long term.

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The Chances of Success: Early 1962

In the first year of the Kennedy Administration,there were several aspects of U.S. behavior--in responseto Communist challenges--which apparently served to en-courage Khrusbehev's thinking about a missile base venturein Cuba: The-most important were: the U.S. self-denialin the Bay of Pigs affair in April 1961; the U.S. accept-ance--partly owing to Allied disunity--of the Berlin Wallin August 1961; the U.S. reluctance to intervene in Laosin the same period; the limited character of the U.S. inter-vention in Vietnam in October 1961; and the inability of theUnited States, demonstrated in early 1962, to gain the sup-port of the most important Latin American states for ahard policy toward Cuba.

By early 1962, in Khrushchev's presumed view, theUnited States had shown itself to be in general reluctantto employ armed force, to be vulnerable to pressure fromits allies, and to be disposed both to accept accomplishedfacts and to make responses which could be contained. Withrespect to Cuba in particular, the United States had madeonly a feeble effort to alter the accomplished fact ofCastro's Cuba; it had shown itself to be sensitive aboutappearing to be an aggressor against Cuba; and it had haddifferences with the major Latin American states aboutCuba.

The President in the first year or so of his Admin-istration had alap made a number of statements meant todiscourage such initiatives as the missile base venture--his warnings in April 1961 about intervention in the West-ern hemisphere by a foreign power, his warnings in theVienna talks about the dangers of miscalculation, his warn-ings in July 1961 along the same lines, and his reaffirma-tionas in March 1962 that the United States might take theinitiative in some circumstances in using nuclear weaponsagainst the USSR. However, Khrushchev and his comradesthought they had reason to discount these warnings--whichwere in general terms, and which, with respect to Cuba,were in effect cancelled by American inaction and by thefailure to issue a specific warning about Cuba. Even a

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strong specific warning about Cuba might not have deterredKhrushchev, as the deployment of strategic missiles ir Cubawas an action which could be revoked, permitting Moscow' toexplore U.S. intentions while the build-up was underway andgiving the USSR an avenue of escape if necessary.

The conception of the venture probably called forall componedis of the program--both defensive and offensive--to.become operational about mid-November (although, as itturned out, there was a lag in the IRBU portion of theprogram). The USSR apparently did not foresee a high risk--of an attack on Cuba or the USSR--at any point in the ven-ture. While some risk was probably recognized, and thusKhrushchev woulTprobably have preferred to keep the build-up secret until the program was complete (in order to con-front the U.$. with an accomplished fact), it was apparentlyjudged infeasible to camouflage the large IRBU sites againstU.S. aerial reconnaissance. Thus Khrushchev decided to dowhat he could to deceive the United States--without count-ing on it--by good security and through misleading state-ments of Soviet intentions. In this connection, the weaponswere to be described as having a defensive pur os, a formulawhich might help to deceive the United Stats 6u which,if not, could serve as the form of an invitation to the U.S.to acquiesce,

The United States was indeed expected to acquiescein the build-up, at whatever time discovered. If thisestimate proved wrong, however, and the United States wereto send a signal of alarm, the USSR could turn to its variousmeans (not includ'ing military means) of preventing effectiveintervention. It was apparently the Soviet calculation thatthe United States, even if alarmed, would not attack eitherthe USSR or Cuba, would at most impose a blockade, and couldprobably be tied up in negotiations, during which the build-up could perhaps be completed--thus increasing the Sovietdeterrent to action against the bases--or in which the USSRcould obtain large concessions. If this estimate also provedwrong, and the USSR had to withdraw the strategic missiles,at least Cuba itself could very probably be saved.

Khrushchev was, of course, mistaken in his basicestimate, as the United States credibly threatened to usewhatever degree of force was necessary and proved to be

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unwilling to let itself be tied up in negotiations or togive him substantial concessions. O the various factorswhich may have contributed to Khrushchev's miscalculation,we see wishful thinking as the most important. While theAmerican record as of early 1962 suggested a marginal pos-sibility of success for a missile base venture, it waswishful thinkig which converted that possibility into anestimate.of pobable success. Khrushchev seems in particu-lar not to have..seen that, if Soviet gains from a success-ful missile base venture were to be so great, it was prob-able that the United States would recognize what was atstake and therefore probable that the United States wouldact to deny such gains to its principal antagonist--justas the President had told Khrushchev, in effect, on severaloccasions. Moreover, the venture was not thought through,in the sense of recognizing the consequences of the possi-ble failure--namely, that failure would make most of Khru-shchev's problems worse than they were before.

The Progress of the Venture, April-August 1962

By mid-March, the Cuban Communist effort to takepower from Castro--an effort aimed at creating a securepolitical base for the missile base venture--had clearlyfailed, but the Soviet effort to persuade Castro that anAmerican invasion of Cuba wAs being planned, and that adeterrent was urgently needed, had proved successful. Bymid-April, the USSR also succeeded in persuading him thatthe deployment of atrategic missiles in Cuba was the answer.The agreement on the missile bases was followed by neweconomic agreements, by the recall of the disfavored Sovietambassador, and by Khrushchev's public promises of con-tinued aid. In June, Khrushchev admitted that "weapons"were being sent to Cuba, but Soviet coplaints about theCubans served the interest of deception.

In this period of spring 1962, developments out-side Cuba confirmed Khrushchev's judgment that he neededthe Cuban missile bases. American spokesmen continued toexpress confidence that the balance of power favored andwould continue to favor the United States, and Khrushchev

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publicly reiterated his complaint that the West was continu-ing to act tram "positions of strength" and would not givehim what he wanted. The Soviet hope or even expectation ofa Berlin settlement was disappointed, and there was no pro-gress on disarmament. Khrushchev in this period expressedin strong terms his disappointment with the results of hisearlier policy toward the underdeveloped countries, andMoscow's recesh decision to emphasize military rather thaneconomic aid to'such countries was expressed spectacularlyin a new military aid agreement with Indonesia, which pro-vided equipment and Soviet crews which could be used foran invasion of West New Guinea. And the Sino-Soviet rela-tionship continued to deteriorate.

Throughout the spring of 1982 Soviet spokesmen ex-pressed concern that the United States intended to takemilitary action against Cuba, but Khrushchev's real con-cern seemed to be over the President's statements (of March)that the United States might in some circumstances takethe initiative in using nuclear weapons. Khrushchev mayhave been having some second thoughts on the question ofwhether the risks were low in the Cuban venture. It so,he may have been encouraged again by the U.S. response tofresh operations by pro-Communist forces in Laos, a responsewhich could be read as acceptance of another accomplishedtact. He may also have been reassured to some degree byWashington's presentation of an American counter-force strat-egy; he did not, at least, show the same concern over this'no cities' doctrine that he had shown over the President'sstatements of March.

Raul Castro's trip to Moscow in the early summer of1962 was probably related to the administration of the mis-sile base venture, and he may again have tried and failedto get a formal Soviet commitment to Cuba's defense. hru-shchev at the same tiue reiterated his concern about Ameri-can readiness to employ nuclear weapons, and the reportedSoviet incitement of the Indonesians to use Soviet weaponsand crews against West New Guinea may have reflected a wishto test American intentions in this area before going aheadwith the build-up in Cuba. In any case, and despite hisprobable knowledge by July that American U-2S were overtly-ing Cuba, Ehrushchev went ahead with it; shipments of

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unidentifiable material to Cuba soon increased sharply.While Raul Castro in Moscow publicly boasted that hisnegotiations with the Russians had changed the balance ofpower in the world, Soviet spokesmen did not oven roaffirmKhrushchov's admission that "weapons" were being, sent.

By the' ehd of August, SAMs were deployed in WesternCuba, abo.ut 3,OO0 Soviet personnel were believed to be inCuba, farmers bid been evacuated from areas which becameMRBM sites, and materials and equipment necessary to con-struct the MBM and IRBM launch positions (but not the mis-siles themselves) had probably arrived. Soviet broadcastsat this time were giving misleading descriptions of Sovietshipments to Cuba, and the Cubans did their part by sendingout feelers for an improvement in American-Cuban relations.Reconnaissance at the time revealed no activity identifi-able as associated with the preparation of sites for strat-egic missiles.

While the build-up was underway in late July andAugust, and particularly in late August, Soviet spokesmenrenewed charges that the United States was preparing toattack Cuba, and Moscow renewed its cautious expressionsof support for Cuba in such an event. Moscow did not seemreally to believe, however, as of late August, that theU.S. was about to attack Cuba.

Deployment of the Missiles, September-October 1962

As this stage of the missile base venture began, thestage in which some of the strategic missiles were to bedeployed, the USSR admitted that its cargoes to Cuba in-cluded military equipment and technicians, and said thatCuba was taking measures to "ensure its security." Sovietpropaganda at the time both asserted differences and drewparallels between the American position in Turkey and theSoviet position in Cuba.

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With the President's statement of warning on 4 Sep-tember, Khrushchev lost some of his confidence, we think,and now recognlzed a good possibility that the United Stateswould not acquiesce in the build-up in Cuba. Thus, withan increased Soviet interest in delaying American discoveryof the bases as long as possible (so that the USSR would bein the stronges't -possible military and political positionwhen discovery'came), Khrushchev's ambassador on 6 Septembermade. aseriously misleading statement (still short of aflat lie) about Soviet intentions in Cuba. This statement,an assertion of the "defensive" character of Soviet actionsin Cuba, which came immediately after the President's dis-tinction between offensive and defensive capabilities, pre-ceded by a few days the USSR's public introductio o theconcept of the defensive ur one of the weapons--a formulawhich was to serve, it decep on failed, as the form ofthe Soviet invitation to the United States to acquiesce.

On 11 September, the USSR issued an elaborate state-ment introducing the half-revealing formula of defensivepurpose, while including a quite misleading formulation.The statement was designed also to deter the United Statesfrom imposing a blockade if the U.S. did not acquiesce inthe build-up, and to deter the United States from attackingCuba if the U.S. were tempted to take any military actionagainst Cuba beyond a blockade; in this connection, thestatement vaguely foreshadowed Khrushchev's final fallbackposition of a withdrawal for a no-invasion pledge. Also,it invited the United States to believe that Soviet pol&cytoward Germany and Berlin would reflect U.S. policy towardCuba. Several Sovfet commentaries on the.ll September state-ment underlined the point about the defensive purpose inCuba, but some were more misleading.

That the United States continued to be unaware ofthe character and scope of the missile base venture wasmade evident by President Kennedy on 13 September. ThePresident warned the USSR in strong terms, however, againstdeploying strategic missiles in Cuba or establishing thereany capability to take action against the United States.This warning, we think, caused another and larger changein Ehrushchev's espectations: be now judged it robablethat the U.S. would not acquiesce. (We judge th s .m

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his earlier response to a specific warning of this type onBerlin, from his soon-expressed tear of an American block-ade of Cuba and his threats to use military force againstit, and from his soon-to-be-taken decision to tell a flatlie about his intentions in Cuba.) From this point, wethink, he expected only his second best case: American non-acquiescence, expressed as willingness to impose a block-ade, but'unwitlingness to go beyond a blockade, along withwilingness to undertake negotiations, so that (in Khru-shchev's view) the venture could still be managed to theUSSR's profit.

During September, the USSR moved steadily ahead withthe build-up. Additional SAM units were deployed, work onthe MRBM sites proceeded, MRBMs began to arrive (all or al-most all after 13 September); one or two of the MRBM sitesmay have achieved some degree of operational capability,and work continued or began on three IRBM sites. The peri-pheral flights conducted in this period observed nothingof this except the SAMs.

In the last two weeks of September, Moscow took ad-ditional political measures to prepare for the day of dis-covery. Khrushchev, apparently fearing an early blockadeof Cuba, threatened privately to use military force to en-force the right of passage and hinted at (without clearlythreatening) retaliation elsewhere. Oromyko pointed pub-licly to militant features of earlier Soviet statements onCuba, and also made a new disarmament proposal which, Mos-cow may have thought, would be attractive to Washingtonlater in the light bf the Cuban bases or at least wouldstrengthen the probability (as Khrushchev saw it) that theU.S. would not go beyond a blockade. Gromyko at this time(21 September) failed to reiterate the half-revealing formulaof the defensive ur ose of the weapons in Cuba; perhapsKhrushchev had alire y ecided to employ the flat lie inorder to delay the discovery of the missile bases.

By the end of September or the beginning of October,at the latest, Khrushchev had made this decision to employa flat lie. Expecting that American discovery of the baseswaould lead to g blockade, he sought by the lie to halt thereconnaissance, to get into Cuba the remaining elements of

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his program, to be able to present the U.S. with the accom-plished fact of the bases--so that the United States wouldeither accept them or give large concessions to get rid ofthem. Khrushchev apparently saw the change in the patternof U.S. reconnaissance of Cuba as indicating a possible re-treat from a-confrontation, a possible willingness to haltreconnaissance if assured--as the flat lie was to promise--that the'USR'iould not send weapons to Cuba capable ofreaching targeth in the United States. This seems to havebeen the same kind of wishful thinking that went into theoriginal conception of the missile base venture, and to havebeen an instance too of failure to act logically even interms of his own estimate.

While the actual date of delivery of the flat lieto American officials is uncertain, there is no reason todoubt that ghrushchev meant it to be delivered in the firstweek of October. Moreover, on 13 October the Soviet ambas-sador described the weapons in Cuba in terms even more mis-leading than his remarks of 6 September. Strongly implyingthat he understood and was using the President's distinctionbetween offensive and defensive capabilities, Dobrynininsisted that the USSR was not seani offesive weaponsto Cuba. In possible contrast, Gromykoand-the Cuban. mayhave been preparing for American discovery of the missilebases.

The flights over inland Cuba were resumed on 14October, and within a few days Ehrushchev was almost cer-tainly able to jud e that the U.S. had discovered or wasabout to discover the missile bases. In two conversationsin mid-October, Ehrushchev discussed the possibility of anAmerican blockade and appealed for a "responsible" attitude.

Within a few days, the general design of the build-up was clear. There were now 24 SAM sites, Soviet armoredgroups were in encampments, and, of greatest importance,IfRBYs had been deployed at several sites, and work was un-der way on three IRBM sites. In talking with the Presidenton 18 October, Gromyko may or may not have been attemptingto deceive the President (depending on how much Ehrushchevknew at that:.time about the resumed flights over inlandCuba). It seems possible that Gromyko thought of himself

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as extending a final invitation to the United States toacquiesce; if so, he got the message: No.

The Week of the Crisis, 22-28 October 1962

On 22 'Oetober, the President revealed his knowledge.that, contrary to the burden of several seriously mislead-ing Soviet statements, strategic missiles were being deployedin Cuba.. He reminded Moscow of his implicit and explicitwarnings against ventures of this kind and against thisparticular venture, announced an imminent quarantine ofCuba, stated that further action would .be taken if the build-up continued, threatened retsliation against the USSR ifmissiles were launched from Cuba, called on Ehrushchev towithdraw "all offensive weapons," and warned the USSRagainst hostile action elsewhere.

The USSR replied publicly on 23 October with a state-ment designed to put the United States on the defensive,so that the USSR could gain time for the purpose of involv-ing: theUnited States in negotiations aimed at gaining yetmore time or some large concession.. In this statement, theUSSR neither admitted nor explicitly denied the deploymentin Cuba of strategic missiles, adhered to the formula ofdefensive urose, and presented the dispute as being reallybetween the n ed States and Cuba. The statement deniedthe right of the U.S. to forbid a military build-up in Cuba(or elsewhere) or to impose a quarantine, warned of thedangerous consequeEces of American actions, took no noteof the threat to the USSR, and asserted that the USSR wouldtry to keep the peace while looking to its military readi-ness. On the same day, hrushchev ordered his ships carry-ing military cargoes to Cuba to turn back. These ships werebelieved to be carrying some if not all of the remainingelements of the program in Cuba.

In the next three days, Ehrushchev worked alongseveral lines, sometimes in a disorderly fashion. 8e madefurther statements designed to reassure the United Statesabout the possibility of general war and also to deterthe U.S. from attacking Cuba. He threatened to run the

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quarantine, but after ordering the course changes; and infact he took additional steps to avoid a confrontation ofSoviet and American ships in the Caribbean. He privatelyadmitted the deployment of strategic missiles in Cuba, saidthat the U.S. would have to learn to live with them, andcontinued the- work on the bases there. He tried hard toinvolve the U.'.' in negotiations. He conducted probes ona particular proposition, the mutual dismantling of bases'in Cuba and Turkey. And he made preparations for a fastbackdown if necessary, a backdown in the form of a proposalfor the withdrawal of offensive weapons in exchange for ano-invasion pledge.

By 26 October, the President had made clear to Khru-shchev that the United States would not permit itself tobe tied up for long in negotiations. Moreover, it was ap-parent from the massing of forces and from public statementsthat the U.S. was preparing to move to a higher level ofmilitary aetion against Cuba in the near future. Becausethe Cubans are known to have expected an attack on or soonafter the night of 26 October, it seems likely that Ehru-shchev's sense of urgency was heightened by frantic messagesfrom Havana. Thus Khrushchev's letter of 26 October, inwhich he implied his willingness to withdraw offensiveweapons from Cuba in exchange for American assurancesagainst an invasion of Cuba, seems to have been designed .to head off any imminent attack on Cuba.

ithout waiting for a reply, Khrushchev in a 27October letter faiyed to reaffirm that position and in-stead proposed a settlement more favorable to the USSR,namely the mutual dismantling of bases in CUba and Turkey.This.letter apparently reflected a fresh calculation ofhis position. The attack on Cuba which he had feared onthe previous day had nOt taken place; and he now estimated.that he still had a little time--perhaps as he said, two orthree days--in which to work; and his 27 October letter,like the earlier threat to defy the quarantine, was alast effort to induce the United States to change its mind,which, this failing, simply served to put the Soviet posi-tion on the record.

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On the evening of 27 October, the President, impos-ing an order on the apparent confusion in Moscow, madeexplicit the proposal implicit in Khrushchev's 26 Octoberletter and attributed it to Khrushchev. Within about 10hours of his receipt of this letter, Khrushchev capitulated.He was almost :certainly helped to this decision--reachedby the early atternoon of 28 October, Moscow time--by addi-tional indicators received between the afternoon of 27

,October and the morning of 28 October that the deadlinemight be either 28 October or 29 October, and by thosepassages in the President's 27 October letter (receivedin the morning of 28 October) which suggested the possi-bility of a 29 October deadline and which in any case em-phasized the urgency of an early agreement. Just as Khru-shchev had ordered his ships to turn back as soon as herecognized that the United States was serious about thequarantine, and just as he had written his 26 October let-ter when he first feared an attack on Cuba, so he acceptedas his own the proposal attributed to him by the Presidentas soon as he was brought to believe that his time wasindeed up.

At least in the short run, Khrushchev had lost heavily.He had been shown up as a liar (even if a half-hearted andclumsy liar), as being willing to sacrifice an ally (andwithout even consulting that ally), and as a much less cooland capable man in a crisis than his principal adversary.'Most of the problems which he had thought to solve with themissile base venture were now worse than they had been be-fore. He had not changed the balance of power, and theinferior Soviet position in this balance was now plain forall to see. He had now no hope of getting something fornothing in negotiations, and had weakened his position ~inany aegotiationw. 'He had'lost ground with the underdevel-oped countries. He had exposed himself to Chinese ridiculeand had strengthened the Chinese case against his leader-ship. He had exacerbated his problems in attempting tocontrol Castro. He had broken even in only one respect:he still had his "socialist" Cuba, his foothold in theestern Hemisphere; and even here it was made clear that

this.foothold could be maintained only on Aerican suffer-ance. Thus, from an Aerican point of view, if the Bay ofPigs misadventure in April 1961 had been properly described

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"_

as a "perfect failure," then the week of 22-28 October1962 could properly be regarded as a dazzling success.

.ow much Khrushchev would lose in the long run wasanother question. Some observers, seeing the failure ofthe venture as the extinction of Khrushchev's last hope ofattaining a.posltion from which he could make rapid advances,have expected"a new era, in which Khrushchev would learn

- to live comfortably with the unfavorable balance of power,would provoke fewer and less serious crises, and in negotia-tions with the United States would aim less at taking pro-fit from crises which he himself had provoked and. more atreaching mutually beneficial agreements. Even if this con-clusion is sound, it is still open to Ehrushchev to attemptto change the balance of power by less spectacular means:to try to achieve a recognized military parity, for example,by agreements on limited measures of arms control, togetherwith a greater effort in research on advanced weapons. Inthis connection, he may regard the test-ban agreement itselfas evidence that he can still get more out of negotiationsthan the West can (i.e., it may be his judgment that thetest-ban will damage American more than Soviet militarydevelopment). With respect to the related problems whichhe had sought to answer with the missile base venture, hemay still hope to reduce his Chinese problem through changesin the Chinese leadership combined with fresh Soviet induce-ments; he may expect to gain much from American troubleswith the underdeveloped countries; and he may believe thatCuba's situation can be stabilized by Cuban efforts to re-duce tensions, exploiting an American reluctance to inter-vene.

In sum: Khrushchev's immediate losses were great;his long-term losses, beyond the loss of time, remainuncertain.

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F

I. The Allure of the Bases, Early 1962

Most of the problems which Khrushchev hoped to solvewith the deployment of strategic missiles in Cuba had beenproblems for him before the Kennedy Administration tookoffice in January 1961. In the 12 to 14 months, however,between that time and the apparent time of his decision togo ahead with the Cuban missile base venture, these prob-lems had become more serious, and new problems had appeared.

The Problems in the Background

Even in January 1961, there had been a need to im-prove the USSR's strategic position, which even then wasnot regarded by the West as strong enough to compel import-ant Western concessions--a need which would become muchgreater if it should be discovered that Khrushchev had beengrossly overstating his strength. There had also been theneed, reflecting Ehrushchev's emphasis on "peaceful coexist-ence," to get some Western concessions in negotiations,especially on recognition of the GDR and the status of WestBerlin, and/or on disarmament, including the question offoreign bases. There tad been the desire to entice theleaders of the underdeveloped countries into a closer as-sociation with the bloc. As for Cuba itself, the only placein the underdeveloped areas in which the USSR had decisiveinfluence, there had been the wish to ensure control overthe Castro regime and to protect the island against theUnited States. Finally, there had been the need to deflatethe Chinese Communist challenge.

After January 1961, the problem of the balance ofpower in all respects grew worse. The balance, which evenin January 1961 had been favorable to the United States,became more so. By autumn 1961 it was apparent to the USSRthat American leaders knew that the balance was consider-ably in their favor, were determined to make this factgenerslly known, and were determined also to increase thegap. By mid-January 1962, according to a reliable Sovietsource, Ehrushchev was so concerned over the imbalance of

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power that he decided to do his best to redress it by theend of 1962--a goal which he could not achieve, in thisperiod, with his ICBM program in the USSR.

The Kennedy Administration from the first disap-pointed Khrushchev's hope of making important gains innegotiations. After threatening to conclude a peace treatywith East Germany by the end of 1961, and taking the stop-.gap measure of building the Berlin Wall in August, Ehru-shchev in October publicly withdrew his deadline for atreaty. By January 1962, Khrushchev's frustration on Ger-many and Berlin was said (by the reliable Soviet sourcecited above) to be the largest consideration in his deci-sion to redress the imbalance of power during 1962. Simi-larly, there was no significant progress on disarmament.

Throughout 1961 and early 1962, the Soviet effortin the underdeveloped areas continued to present a mixedpicture of successes and failures. The USSR seemed disap-pointed with the balance, increasingly concerned over theprospects for U.S. programs in these areas, and vulnerableto Chinese criticism and to Chinese inroads in these-areas.

As for controlling Cuba, Castro from the start hadseemed an imperfect instrument for Soviet purposes; and theCuban Communists, while. making progresp,.'were still a longway frop having the Castroites. under ;their -complete control.As for defending Cuba, there was really no answer to theproblem of protecting an island so close to a large hostilepower.

V"

The soviet party's relationship with the Chineseparty continued to deteriorate through 1961 and early 1962.In October 1961, Khrushchev, trying to recoup his lossessince 1960 to the CCP and to isolate the Chinese party inthe movement, used his Soviet party congress for a system-atic attack on Chinese positions and Chinese supporters.After a winter of polemics with the Chinese, including So-viet threats to disregard the Soviet commitment to Chinesedefense and even to break relations with the Chinese party,by early 1962 the Chinese challenge was being seen by Moscowas so serious that the Russians were trying to induce Pei-ping simply to cease its public attacks.

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The ilitary Change

The change in the military balance of power to beeffected as a result of the Cuban missile base venture wascertainly a basic consideration in hrushchev's thinking.

As of spring 1962, around the time of the decisionto go ahead with the missile base venture, the USSR wasestimated to have fewer than 50 operational launchers (allin the USSR), while the USSR probably credited the UnitedStates with a total of 110 to 125 ICBMs on launchers andPolarises on station (along with much greater striking powerin other categories of strategic forces). Assuming thatthe USSR intended to install no more than 40 launchers inCuba by the end of November or December 1962, the USSRwould have at that time an estimated 60 to 70 ICBMs in theSoviet Union plus those 40 launchers in Cuba, against anAmerican total of something like 130 to 150 ICBMs on laun-cher and Polarises on station (plus IRBMs in Europe). Ifthe figures were projected to mid-1963, the USSR would havean estimated 125 to 175 ICBMs in the USSR plus those 40launchers in Cuba, against perhaps 350 American ICBMs andPolarises. (In addition, the USSR possessed more than 100submarine-launched ballistic missiles, but, in the absenceof any well-established pattern of patrol activity withinrange of U.S. targets, Khrushchev probably was not in aposition to consider these as adding greatly to his activethreat.)

Even if it were assumed that no more than 40 launch-ers were to be installed in Cuba, the increase in Sovietcapabilities would be impressive, in terms of the numberof targets the USSR could reach with strategic missiles.Because the Cuban-based missiles (including the IRBMs of2200-mile range) could reach most American cities, a con-siderable part of the U.S. command and control system, andalmost any of the SAC bomber bases (the bombers at thattime would be carrying the bulk of the U.S. megatonnage),the USSR would be increasing its strategic missile capabilityagainst the mainland United States by more than 50 percent.Moreover, the missiles in Cuba would make much more dramatic

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the threat of sudden death to American cities.* Further,if the first installment of missiles were not successfullychallenged, many additional launchers could be installed(IRBMs as well as MRBhs would then be in plentiful supplyin the USSR, in- greater quantity than needed for strategictargets in Western Europe), along with large numbers ofmedium-range bdmbers and submarines.**

.It is true that, even if Cuba were saturated withSoviet launchers and other weapons, U.S. strategic forceswould remain objectively superior, in part because the

*Some observers have emphasized the importance of thebases in Cuba as giving the Russians the capability for ano-warnin attack. As we understand the matter, however,tis woul have been a very short-term asset, as an Ameri-can early-warning system could have been established quicklyafter the bases were discovered. One observer has surmisedthat only a short-term capability was required, as (hebelieves) the Soviet plan was to use this capability, assoon as acquired, for a surprise attack on U.S. commandand control installations, calculating that.the U.S. wouldbe unable to deliver an effective retaliatory blow. Whilethis view cannot be dismissed, it is an isolated view.

**Some observers have surmised that the Cuban base ven-ture was to be only the first step in redressing the im-balance, and that, if it had succeeded, other bases withnuclear strike capabilities against the U.. would haveappeared in other states of Latin America. That is, asuccessful missile base venture .in Cuba might have so de-moralized Latin American governments that some would bereplaced by pro-Soviet governments willing to provide theUSSR with additional bases, and the USSR might believethat extensive deployment of such weapons outside the USSRwould enhance all the advantages of the Cuban program andwould also reduce the forces which could be brought tobear on the USSR. It seems to us, however, that the USSRwould have to calculate that by the time such a programcould be carried out, the United States would have morethan enough missiles for all targets.

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weapons on Cuba would be very vulnerable to American action.The Soviet launchers could probably be detected and targeted,and would be of soft configuration. The Cuban bases couldbe eliminated by short-range U.S. weapons without any reduc-tion in the nuclear delivery forces programmed against theUSSR itself.

Nevertheless, whether with a small number or a largenumber. of launchers and other weapons in Cuba, the USSR'could expect the weight of its deterrent to be increased,and its first strike capability (whether in pre-emption orcold blood) to be appreciably enhanced.* On one hand, theUSSR even with the new capability could not reasonablyexpect to prevent the United States from destroying theUSSR in the event of general war. On the other hand, So-viet capabilities against the continental United Stateswould be greatly increased with the Cuban bases. In decid-ing to go ahead with the missile base venture, Ehrushchevhad necessarily to give greater weight to the second con-sideration than to the first--that is, to judge that thegreatly increased Soviet capabilities against the UnitedStates would weigh heavier with American leaders themselvesthan the fact that the United States could still do greaterdamage to the USSR.

It is uncertain whether the economic cost of themissile base venture was a factor in its favor--i.e.,whether it was appreciably less expensive to install 40-odd launchers in Cuba than to acquire an equivalent ad-ditional capability against the United States with ICBMsbased in the USSR. Most observers believe that if costwas a'factor at all, it was not a controlling factor. Themuch more important factor (assuming the truth of thereport that ghrushchev felt a need for a ra id increasein his capabilities against the United S a es was that the

*We do not understand why two missiles were assigned toeach launcher in the Cuban venture; we do not see how theRussians could expect to get a second salvo off. Most ob-servers regard this as simply an example of Soviet inflexi-bility.

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USSR almost certainly could not increase its strategiccapabilities by 40 ICBMs between spring 1962 and autumn1962 at any price. The Cuban.bases might not be cheaper,but they would be quicker.

The Political Change

If the change in the military balance of power tobe produced by the installation of 40 or more launchers inCuba was not sufficient in itself to make the venture at-tractive, the addition of a change in the political balancewould make an impressive picture.

It was noted in SNIS 11-17-62 of 17 October 1962("Implications for Soviet Policy of Strategic Missile De-ployment in Cuba") that the Soviet leaders presumably cal-culated that an operational missile -capability in Cubawould be a telling demonstration of their claims that theworld balance of power "is shifting" in their favor. Thisis the essential point.

The Soviet concept of bloc strength usually hasemphasized the qualitative factors and has treated expec-tations as present achievements. For a time, this assess-ment of strength included an assertion of superiority ina plain military sense, but, since the discovery in 1961that Ehrushchev had been greatly overstating his strength,this claim has rarely been made. The bloc's strength hasbeen said to represent a combination of political virtue(a freedom from the grave "contrddictions" that weaken theimperialist enemy) and military and economic achievements,along with the moral support of most of the people of theworld--factors which in combination give the bloc and itsfriends superiority in some respects even now ("the forcesof peace are stronger than the forces of war"), and whichwill eventually be expressed as overwhelming superiorityof all kinds. If the United States weretto fail to repelthe challenge of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, both theSoviet assertion of moral superiority and the Soviet confi-dence in an eventual triumph would seem to have been jus-t ified.

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To spell it out, if the United States were to acceptthe advance of Soviet power in its own hemisphere, it wouldseem to be doing so for some one or some combination of thefollowing reasons:

(1) it.was not sufficiently perceptive to respond,i.e., it had 'such a poor sense of its vital interests thatit could. not .seV the threat to them; or

- (2) it was too faint-hearted to respond, unwill-ing to accept the risk of injury even when in possessionof superior forces both tactically and strategically; or

(3) it was too indecisive to respond, as a resultof "internal contradictions" in the United States or inthe Western camp (whether interpreted in Communist termsor in terms of neurotic behavior).*

Moreover, if the Soviet claim to moral and politicalsuperiority were to seem justified, there would in fact bea shift in the balance, expressed as a shift in the posi~tion of each of the components of the non-Communist world:

(1) the United States itself, if deterred fromresponding to the rocket threat from Cuba, would be in-creasingly deterred from making effective responses else-where (whether as a result of the President's own deci-sion or as a result of pressures on him from other Ameri-can leaders and from the public), and the U.S. would thusbe much less of a threat to the USSR;

*It may be objected that Khrushchev knew very well thatthe West was not weak, cowardly, indecisive, etc., aswitness that he had withdrawn his deadline for a Germansettlement. We would answer that he did not know thathis retreat had been necessary, he had simply'chosen notto risk a clear challenge there; and also that in theCuban"venture he hoped to gain (among other things) abetter reading on just this question. Thus, if he hadbeen successful in the Cuban venture, he would have beenmuch more aggressive on the German question.

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(2) the genuine allies of the United States, whethergovernments or individuals, would be greatly disheartened(as Mr. Henry Kissinger has put it, a "United States gov-ernment incapable of preventing the establishment of Sovietmissile bases in Cuba would certainly have been thought in-

capable of defending interests further from its shores"),and at least some of them would probably move to reducetheir dependdice on the United States and in the direction.(even if slowly) of an accommodation with the USSR;

(3) the nominal allies of the United States, whethergovernments or individuals, would move rapidly to a posi-tion of neutrality or 'every man for himself';

(4) the few pro-Soviet regimes in the underdevelopedareas would become more so, and at least some of the un-aligned nations, greatly impressed by this new evidenceof Soviet strength, would shift to pro-Soviet positions;and

(5) existing pro-Soviet and leftist extremistforces in all countries of the non-Communist world wouldbe greatly augmented and emboldened.

In sum, as 1e see Ehrushchev putting the case tohis comrades, the USSR had an opportunity with a singleinitiative not only to solve its outstanding problems but:to prepare the ground for the rapid fulfillment of itsfundamental prophecy.

. . -

Negotiations, -

Ehrushchev on several occasions had complained thatthe West had not drawn the proper conclusions from the"changes in the balance of power" in recent years--a wayof saying that the est was aware that the balance ofpower was greatly in its favor and therefore was not will-ing to give Ehrushchev what he wanted. He had said thesame thing, in a livelier fashion, on that day in 1958when he stated Moscow's intention to turn over remainingSoviet functions in Berlin to the East Germans: "If I

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go to church to pray for peace, they throw bombs at me;but when I come there bomb in hand to ask for peace, theywill listen." The deployment of strategic missiles inCuba would of course be Khrushchev's "bomb in hand"; andhe would of course be seeking something more than "peace."

German and Berlin: Of all the issues between Eastand Wst,- thosq of Germany and Berlin were probably ofgreatest immediate importance to Khrushchev. His prestigewas deeply committed to obtaining a German peace treatyor, failing this, to signing a separate treaty with theGDR. Despite the great strength of his tactical positionin East Germany, he had made little progress in gainingWestern recognition of the GDR and none in getting theWestern allies to relinquish their rights in West Berlin.In addition, his East German satellite was having seriouseconomic problems.

Khrushchev conceived that a rapid build-up of'Sovietoffensive strength in Cuba would enhance his capabilityfor imposing a favorable settlement of the German and Berlinproblems with the West. The Cuban bases once established,Khrushchev would be in a position to use threats success-fully against the West in Berlin or, depending on the vigorof the U.S.:reaction, to employ the bases in negotiations-in either case, returning to his maximum demand for a West-ern withdrawal. In turn, U.S. willingness to accept aSoviet-imposed settlement in Berlin would drastically affectthe U.S. position throughout Europe and probably all overthe world.

At a lower level of risk, Ehrushchev as a firststep could introduce the German and Berlin issues intothe UN, probably in November, with Ehrushchev himselfpresenting the case. (Several reports of autumn 1962pointed to a Soviet plan to do this.) This move couldbe followed by a bloc-convened peace conference and, ata later date, by the signing of a separate peace treatywith the GDR, which would entail the turning over tothe East Germans of control over Allied access to Berlin.

Disarmament: With the bases in Cuba, the USSR wouldprobably lose whatever genuine interest in disarmament it

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may have had--particularly if the changes in the politicalbalance of power (noted earlier) were visibly taking place.However, if the Russians were to remain or to become seri-ously interested in either "general and complete disarma-ment" or any of.the proposals on partial measures that theUSSR had put on the record before the decision on the mis-sile base ventrq was made, the missile bases would muchimprove the Soviet position. Mos4pw would be negotiatingfrom a strategic position closer to parity with the U.S.,and 'with the dramatic threat of the launchers in Cuba inthe background.

Just as the bases could be used to support the USSR'sdemands for a settlement on Soviet terms on Germany andBerlin, so the bases could be used to try to induce Westernacceptance of Soviet terms on disarmament-that is, an agree-ment on "general and complete disarmament" without adequateprovision for controls, and envisaging (as in the Sovietproposal introduced in autumn 1960) the liquidation of over-seas bases. For an agreement of this kind, the USSR might,even decide that it could afford to give up the Cuban bases.*

The bases would of course be useful--and in thiscase without giving them up--An support of any smallerSoviet effort in disarmament: for example, in seekingagreements on the freezing of military budgets, renuncia-tion of the use of nuclear weapons, the establishment ofa nuclear-free zone in Europe, the non-proliferation ofnuclear weapons, measures to reduce the danger of surpriseattack, etc. However, we would not expect the Russians,having the Cuban aissile bases, to be concerned primarilywith such Simited measures.

*Gromy o in september 1962 was to propose, in reply toU.S. objections to destroying all nuclear delivery vehiclesin the first stage of general disarmament, that an exceptionbe made for a "strictly 1 imited and agreed number" of mis-siles to remain at the disposal of the U.S. and the USSR.The Soviet missiles would presumably be the ICBMs in theUSSR; the prospect of getting the IRBEs and MRB1s out ofCuba would perhaps make this proposal look better.

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Overseas Bases: The question of overseas basescould be a separate question as well as part of the Sovietposition on disarmament. The Cuban missile bases woulddramatically focus attention on this issue, suddenly dis-playing the USSR as the equal of the United States. Asthe Soviet Government was to observe in its statement of11 September 1962, a statement which was addressed pri-marily to the-Cuban situation and which linked this situa-tion to the question of U.S. overseas bases as well as thequestion of a German settlement:

The whole world knows that the UnitedStates has ringed the Soviet Union andother.. socialist countries with bases. Whathave they stationed there - tractors?....No, they have brought armaments there intheir ships, and these armaments...are saidto be there lawfully, by right. They con-sider this their right, but to othersthe United States does not permit thisright even for defense... Equal rightsand equal opportunities must be recognizedfor all countries of the world...

As many observers have noted, U.S. overseas missilebases, in the past two or three years, have been of greaterpolitical concern than of strategic concern to the USSR;they add little to the total threat and are so vulnerableto medium bombers and IRB1s and ERBds (weapons which theSoviets have in great numbers) that they would be of littlevalue except for a'first strike. If these bases wereremoved, their striking power would be replaced by muchless vulnerable weapons systems--Polarises and hardened,U.S.-based ICBMs. If the Cuban bases were to be used innegotiations designed to bring the USSR closer to strategicparity, the Soviets would be likely to bypass the basesand go after the ICBMs and Polarises--which effort wouldbe a part of proposals on disarmament.*

Swness, an included the Polarises in itsEuropean withdrawal scheme of February 1963.

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However, Soviet possession of the missile bases inCuba could be used in an effort to effect further changesin the political balance of power. That is, the U.S. over-seas bases are the symbol of mutual commitments, and thecountry accepting such bases is solidly within the U.S.system of alliances, not susceptible to Soviet overtures.The Cuban bases-could be used in a base-trading proposal-- relinquishmebt of the Cuban bases in exchange for liqui-dation of all U.S. overseas bases. The proposal need noteven be serious: as another observer has noted, not onlywould the USSR have larger purposes in midd than base-trad-ing, but the Soviits could accomplish most of the damagethey wished to inflict on the U.S. alliance system simplyby drawing the United States into negotiations on thismatter. If the bases were negotiable under Soviet pressure,then the United States would surely be regarded as an un-reliable ally.

The Underdeveloped Areas

The impetus that a successful missile base venturewould give to the Soviet program in the underdevelopedareas was probably a smaller item--with less immediateand striking gains to be made--in the exposition of the 'advantages than were the gains to be made in changingthe balance of power and in negotiations on Bast-lestissues. The bases were almost certainly seesthowever,as helping the Soviet effort in the underdeveloped areasin the 1o~g'tera,*and probably in the short term as wellin Latin America.

The bases would certainly be presented as a proof .of the USSR's proclaimed willingness and ability to pro-tect the forces (colonial peoples and newly-independentgovernments) of the''"liberation movement" (to which the

-USSR had in fact given only moderate support in recentyears). The colonial peoples would surely be encouragedby the Soviet success in challenging a great power gen-erally identified with the colonial powers, and the newly-independent governments would be expected to feel eitheradmiration for the accomplishment or fear of the consequences

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-lg

or both. This success would also be presented as evidenceof Soviet willingness to help smaller countries to acquirecapabilities of their "own" for standing up to a greatpower. As noted previously, Khrushchev probably expectedthat the bases .in Cuba, for whatever combination of reasons,would move at least some of the unaligned nations into apro-Soviet position.*

This in turn would give the USSR greater opportun-ities for manipulating both the unaligned (but shifting)governments and the local Communist parties. Among otherthings, in some countries the USSR might be able to estab-lish military bases (not necessarily including missilelaunchers), which could be used to threaten less concilia-tory governments of those areas and to train forces foruse against them (something like the way in which Cubahas been used, but under Soviet control); at the sametime, or alternatively, the USSR could build a system ofalliances with some of the pro-Soviet countries. In theseand other countries which were particularly amenable toSoviet influence, the Communist parties could be kept onthe leash. In the less amenable countries, the Communistparties could be turned loose and given greater support.In any case, the USSR would not need to fear that a UnitedStates which had not taken action against the missile basesin Cuba would take action to bring down new pro-Communistregimes in the underdeveloped areas.

*Tere is some question as to what degree this expecta-t ion was sound. Yr. Henry Kissinger has questioned theexpectation in these terms: "The Soviets even misunder-stood the temper of the uncommitted. Most of them areglad enough to play off both sides against each other,but their attitude is bound to be very different if theprotection of 'national liberation movements' takes theform of nuclear missile bases that would project theminto the very center of the East-West conflict."

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Cuba

The value of the Cuban missile bases for the controland protection of Cuba itself was probably the smallestitem, and perhaps a debatable item, on the list of assertedadvantages forathe venture.e

It could- have been argued, and perhaps was, thatthe 'situation in Cuba was if anything a negative considera-tion: that Castro was so unreliable, and with such pos-sibilities for exploding, that the missile base venturewould be in danger from its own base; that that considera-tion had been an important part af the rationale of therecent Communist effort to dislodge Castro, and that thatabortive effort had made him even more sensitive and dan-gerous; so that, if launchers were installed in Cuba atall, this must be done for very pressing reasons havingnothing to do with Cuba except for Cuba's geographicallocation, which made it the only place where the launcherscould be installed for the purpose of dramatizing a newteat to the United States.

There were two apparent answers to such an argument:first, that the missile bases would make Castro easier tohandle; second, that even if this estimate were provedwrong, the USSR, not Castro, would be in control of thelaunchers, and there would be a strong enough Soviet mili-tary contingent on the island to beat off any Cuban effortto seize the missiles at least until such time as thewarheads could be made inoperable (the troops could alsoassist the evacuation of all Soviet citizens if necessary).

Whether in response to such an argument or not, thecontention that the missile bases would help to answer the

*In speaking of "control," we do not mean physical con-trol; Soviet troops in Cuba were not intended to be anoccupation force. We refer instead to psychological c-control, to the role of the venture as a whole in keepingCastro and the Cubans in line.

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problem of controlling and protecting Cuba was, we think,put forward by Khrushchev. As for control, Castro couldbe made to believe that the bases would greatly extend theSoviet commitment to his defense at a time of continuedagitation in the.United States for action against him.Moreover, Castro would surely be impressed by the import-ance of the bases, which would make Cuba itself a placeof global importance, enabling Castro's Cuba to play akey role in the.degradation of Castro's main enemy.*Together with the launchers, there would be additionalmilitary aid to Castro's own forces, to help him put down"counter-revolution" from within or from other Latin Ameri-can states, and there might be additional economic aid ifneeded. As a result of all this, Castro could reasonablybe expected to be more responsive to Soviet wishes. Thisgreater responsiveness would be expressed, among other ways,in Castro's economic policies, leading to better managementof the Cuban economy and more rational requests of the USSR,and in a more selective program of Cuban assistance torevolutionary movements elsewhere in Latin America.

As for protecting Cuba, the SAM system (the presumedargument went) itself would be seen as greatly raising thecosts of American action against Cuba, and as so increasingthe time necessary to achieve the objectives of such actionas to make the action much less likely. The true rationalewould be: if the missile bases did not provoke a massive:American attack on Cuba, or a threat of one which wouldcause their withdrawal, then a successful missile base ven-ture which served to deter the United States in generalwould serve also in the particular case of Cuba.

*Castro mimsel bas recently (November 1963) stated thatthe first consideration--Cuba's defense--was his entirereason for accepting the deployment of the missiles. Wedo not believe that, but we think it was his main reason.He seems to have been impressed also by the o er considera-tion, the strategic importance of the venture and Cuba'simportance as a result: witness Raul Castro's boast ukMoscow in July, that his negotiations with the Russianshad changed the balance of power in the world, and Fidel'ssad remark, after the missiles had been withdrawn, thatCuba had been a "nuclear power" for a few weeks.

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The Chinese Challenge

The value of the Cuban bases in deflating the ChineseCommunist challenge was almost certainly an important itemin the list of advantages. We do not believe, however, assome observers have concluded, that this was the most import-ant consideration.

The essence of the Chinese position, in that partof the Sino-Soviet dispute concerned with world Communiststrategy, was that Khrushchev had not been sufficientlymilitant in pressing the struggle with the United States.A successful missile base venture would not prove theChinese to have been wrong--ironically, onlythbloc'sdestruction in a general war could prove that, althoughan unsuccessful missile base venture would tend to proveit--but it would constitute a far more crippling blow tothe American enemy than anything the Chinese had everattempted or"even advocated. Ehrushchev could probablyargue persuasively, to other Communists whom the Chinesehad been influencing or seeking to influence, that hisintention all along had been to move cautiously until hejudged the time to be propitious for a great leap forward.

Similarly, the essence of the Chinese position onnegotiations with the West was that nothing good wouldcome of them (Peiping of course to osed agreements onsome matters, such as a test-ban an non-proliferation ofnuclear weapons), and that the effort to get somethingout of them retarded the Communist global struggle. Inso-far as the missile base venture was intended to be asubstitute for negotiations, the venture would supportPeiping's view, but insofar as the venture would lead, asexpected, to substantial gains on such matters as Germanyand Berlin and disarmament (including the question of over-seas bases), the Chinese estimate of the value of negotia-tions would seem mistaken.

Similarly, the heart of the Chinese position on theunderdeveloped areas was that the Communist cause wasgetting a poor return on Soviet economic and military aidto unaligned governments, that large sums would be better

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invested in deserving Communists (notably the Chinese), andthat much greater support should be given to the Communistparties in the underdeveloped countries for armed struggleand other violence against their governments. The missilebases might gre.atly reduce this Chinese case over the longrun, as an investment which might greatly increase Sovietinfluence in th. underdeveloped areas (and, moreover, woulddo so by-a means--the installation of advanced weapons--which could not-be employed by the Chinese in their competi-tion for influence*); the bases would not only do greaterdanage to the enemy than any number of guerrilla actionsin non-strategic areas, but would permit the Soviets togive greater Support to armed struggle in selected areasif they so desired.

Finally, the heart of the Chinese case on mattersof authority and discipline was that the Soviet party hadno authority over other parties and that no party couldbe compelled to accede even to a majority vote in themovement. The missile base venture would not refute thisargument, but it would surely give the Soviet party astronger claim to authority, and it could be expected toreduce Peiping's fillowing in the movement, in terms ofboth individual parties and elements of parties.

In sum, the missile bases would take the force outof the Chinese charges, would reduce the Chinese camp,and might even take some steam out of the Chinese themselves.

*Spec ically, he missile bases would reduce Chineseinfluence in Cuba itself, both by: binding Castro to theUSSR and by making Chinese positions on strategy seeschildish.

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Summary of Allurements

In our view (probably the view of most observers),by far the most important advantage seen by Khrushchevin a successful missile base venture in Cuba was theeffect of the bases in changing the balance of power be-tween East an"West--partially redressing the imbalance.in a strategic sense, and perhaps more than redressing itin a political sense. (It is not necessary to judge whetherstrategic or political considerations were the more import-ant: the former were to be the ground of the latter, thelatter were to be the most striking effect of the former,but in any case the two sets of considerations were boundtogether, the USSR would gain in both senses or in neither.)With respect to particular East-West issues, of greatestimmediate importance was the gain to be made, whether innegotiations or outside of them, on the status of the GDRand Berlin; of lesser but considerable importance, over alonger term, was the use of the bases as a bargainingcounter (after immediate gains had been made on Germanyand Berlin) in negotiations on disarmament (including thematter of U.S. overseas bases). Of great importance alsowas the advantage to be gained by deflating the Chinesechallenge, both immediately and over the long term. Ofconsiderable importance, over the long term, were the gainsto be made in the underdeveloped areas. And at the endof the list, as a possibly debatable item, advantageshoped for but perhaps not confidently foreseen, were thegains to be made in controlling and protecting Cuba.

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II. The Chances of Success, Early 1962

It is self-evident that Khrushchev did not makethe decision to go ahead with the missile base venturein Cuba in the.expectation that the venture would fail.In other words; he had to judge, first, that the UnitedStates would.probably acquiesce, or, if unwilling toacquiesce, would probably be unwilling to take military'action (beyond a possible blockade); he had to judge so,because American willingness to fight, in view of theUSSR's military inferiority both tactically and strat-egically, would leave the USSR no choice but to withdraw.Beyond this, he had to judge that, if the U.S. were In-deed willing to fight and the failure of the venture hadto be accepted, he would probably be given time to with-draw.

The Record of U.S. Responses

For several years before the Eennedy Administrationcame into office, Khrushchev had been contending that theUnited States, owing mainly to Soviet military strength,was increasingly deterred from engaging its own forces inlocal wars. The U.S..self-denial in the Bay of Pigs af-fair in April 1961, in which the United States had tiedits hands both in advance of the venture and on the firstday of the invasion, fitted this preconception. Ehrushchevalmost certainly took the affair as additional evidencethat the United States was in general reluctant to employmilitary force, and he probably concluded too that thePresident was much concerned about appearing to be theaggressor against a small country.

Thpre had been another development in August 1961which presumably contributed to Ehrushchev's misjudgmentof spring 1962. While unwilling to risk a clear test ofthe President's private and public declarations that theUnited States would fight if necessary for Allied rightsin Berlin, Ehrushchev in August had chipped away a pieceof Allied rights by building the Berlin Wall, and the

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---- -

United States had accepted the Wall. This development prob-ably encouraged Khrushchev to believe that the United Stateswould accept an accomplished fact which was not a grosstrespass against a-precisely defined vital interest, par-ticularjy if the allies of the United States were opposedto strong American action. In the same period, the UnitedStates had showed itself not disposed to intervene mili-tarily. in Laos--another development which could have been'taken as evidence of a general reluctance to employ armedforce.

Another piece of evidence might have been the char-acter of the American intervention in Vietnam in October1961. The United States had decided to expand its rolein providing military assistance to South Vietnam, but theU.S. role was :to be confined to fighting Communists inSouth Vietnam; it was not to include the carrying of thefight into North Vietnam, nor was the fighting in Laos tobe expanded. This might have encouraged a belief thatU.S. responses to Communist challenges could be contained.

Ehrushchev had probably been encouraged too by theresults of the Punta del Este conference in February 1962,in which differences between the United States and themost important Latin American states, with respect to Cuba,were clearly expressed. Khrushchev may well have concludedthat the demonstrated opposition of these Latin Americanstates to strong action against Cuba would be an importantrestraining factor in American thinking in the event of anew challenge from Cuba, just as Allied disunity had contri-buted to American inaction on the Berlin Wall.

In sum: by early 1962, at which time Ehrushchev wasconsidering the chances of success of a missile base ven-ture, the United States--in Ehrushchev's presumed view--hadshown itself to be in general reluctant to employ armedforce, to be vulnerable to pressure from its allies, and

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to be disposed both to accept accomplished facts* and tomake responses which could be contained. With respect toCuba in particular, the United States had made only a feebleeffort to alter the accomplished fact of Castro's Cuba.It had shown itself to be sensitive about apper: ing to bean aggressor.against Cuba, and it had had and was stillhaving differences with the major Latin American statesabout Cuba. ---

- There had been a number of statements by PresidentKennedy in the period from early 1961 to early 1962 whichhad different implications, and which were presumably con-sidered by Ehrushchev and his comrades in surveying thefavorable and unfavorable considerations in the missilebase venture. For example, the President twice in April1961 had warned that intervention, penetration, and aggres-sion in the Western hemisphere by a foreign power couldreach proportions which would threaten the security of theUnited States and thus compel American action. In':theVienna talks in June 1961, the President had warned Khru-shchev of the dangers of miscalculation (giving a changein the 'status of Berlin as an example of such miscalcula-tion). Again in July 1961--in speaking of the situationin Berlin--the President had warned against the "dangerousmistake" of assuming that the West was too selfish and softand divided to fight for its vital interests, and thus againhad at least implied to Ehrushchev that large Soviet gainswould not be tolerated. And in March 1962 he had reaffirmedthat the United States might take the initiative in somecircumstances in using nuclear weapons against the USSR.

It is self-evident, again, that Khrushchev and hiscomrades thought that they had reason to discount all ofthese warnings, to give more weight to the kied'of encouraging

,*Ths ractor may have been seen as working for the USSR,in a missile base venture, with regard to the Americanpeople rather than the U.S. Government; that is, Washingtonwould probably learn of the venture before the program wascompleted, but the people might not.

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II

evidence cited previously than to discouraging statementsof this second kind. We surmise that their reasoning wassomething like this: the President's April 1961 warningsagainst intervention, penetration and aggression in theWestern hemisphere were in general terms, and were issuedafter there had.already been a good deal of Communist inter-vention and penetration; the President's warnings in theVienna- talks in June 1961 about the dangers of miscalcula-tion apparently did not include a specific warning aboutthe Soviet use of Cuba; the President's renewed suggestion,in his July 1961 warning about the situation in Berlin,that large Soviet gains would not be tolerated, was notspelled out to include any area beyond Berlin; and thePresident's March 1962 statement about taking the initia-tive in the use of nuclear weapons was again put in generalterms, with only a Soviet invasion of Western Europe ex-pressly identified as an action which might provoke suchan American response. In this connection, it should benoted that in that instance in hich the President hadrepeatedly warned Ehrushchev (in the Vienna talks andsubsequently) against a specific, clearly-defined action--i.e., signing the kind of peace treaty which would givethe East Germans control over estern access to Berlin--Ehrushchev had believed or had come to believe in thiswarning, and, despite the commitment of his personalprestige to the signing of such a treaty with,n a giventime, had swallowed his pride and backed away. We donot conclude from this that an express warning againstdeploying strategic weapons in Cuba, if issued before theprogram was well underway, would necessarily have discour-aged Moscow, as Ehrushchev may have seen an important dif-ference between the situation in Berlin and the Cuban ven-ture: he may have thought of transfer to the East Germansof control over access to Berlin as an irrevocable step(because it would so damage the concept of "sovereignty"of all bloc states if he tried to take it back), whereashe almost certainly regarded the deployment of missilesin Cuba as an action which could be revoked, one whichwould permit the USSR to explore U.S. intentions while theventure was underway and would give Moscow an avenue ofescape if necessary. Thus, while it seems clear that warn-ings put in general terms were not taken seriously at anystage, the efficacy of a specific warning at an early stage.remains a question for debate.

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The Plans for Management

Judging from the actual course of the missile baseventure (the only evidence on the planning), the ventureas conceived was not to be carried out in clearly-definedphases or stages, in terms of kinds of weapons or levelsof risk: The--conception did not call for the phased de-ployment of first defensive and then offensive weapons,but' called instead for all parts of the program to beworked on at the same time. The original conception prob-ably called for all components--both defensive and offen-sive--to become operational about mid-November, although,as it turned out, there was a lag in the IRBM portion ofthe program so that this portion would be completed onlyin December or (probably) in January 1963.* Neither, ap-parently, did the conception envisage significantly differ-ent levels of risk at different stages. Since the USSRwas evidently unable to recognize a high risk even afterthe President's warnings of early September, it seems evi-dent too that in its original plans the USSR did not fore-see a high risk (of an attack on Cuba or the USSR) at anypoint in the course of the venture as planned.

*0niTis view, the L-28s, which were not to be assembleduntil 1963, were not a part of the missile base venture,but were part of the program of conventional arms. The IRB1s,however, were an essential part of the venture, and thefailure to give this part of the program enough lead timewas a serious failure; it meant that for about two monthsthe missile bases would have only half of their plannedcapability against the United States, i.e. would be unableto reach that half of the U.S. to be covered by the IEBMs.Possible explanations for the lag are (a) a debate as whetherthe IRBM sites could be successfully camouflaged, (b) debateas to whether to put in the IRBMs at all, if they could notbe concealed, (c) a decision that a two-month lag was pre-ferable to starting work on the IRBM sites two months earlierthan on the MRB sites, as the latter course would most ex-pose the venture during its most vulnerable stage.

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Some observers have argued that it was imprudent notto complete the installation of the SAM system before begin-ning to deploy the strategic missiles, as a completed SAMsystem might have prevented the discovery of the strategicmissiles until all of the missiles had been deployed. Butthis argumentiassumes that the USSR was willing to take allpossible measuires to conceal the build-up, including theemployment of .the SAMs against American aircraft. And this

' assumption is clearly mistaken. The USSR did not make .evena half-hearted attempt to camouflage the missile sites untillate October, several weeks after the URBMs and relatedequipment had arrived in Cuba and had been transported tothe sites. And the Russians did not bring their air defensesystem into operational status as early as they could have,as early as they would have if they had intended to use it.

It is hard to find a persuasive explanation of theSoviet failure to camouflage the construction and equip-ment at the actual sites, while at the same time carryingout rigorous security measures in accumulating the person-nel and equipment in the USSR and in offloading the equip-ment at the Cuban ports, and while also undertaking an ef-fort +o deceive the United States by misleading statementsof Soviet intentions in Cuba. Five possible explanationshave been suggested: (a) the Russians had no appreciationof U.S. reconnaissance capabilities; (b) they understood:these capabilities, but judged that there was no possibilityof reconnaissance; (c) they understood the capabilities andrecognized the possibility, but the Soviet commanders inCuba failed.to implement the order to camouflage; (d) theyhad such high confidence in success that they were indif-ferent to discovery; or !e) they would have preferred tocamouflage the build-up at the sites, but they judged thisinfeasible.

We believe that the first three possibilities canbe dismissed. As for the first, the testimony given in thePowers trial (and printed in Soviet publications) showsthat the Russians understood very well the capabilities ofthe U-2; Khrushchev himself apparently had this understand-ing,' as he had indicated in his comments on the U-2; andin April 1962 Marshal Biryuzov, commander of Soviet AirDefense Forces and perhaps the best-informed person in the

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USSR on the U-2's capabilities, was to become commander ofSoviet Rocket Forces and thus responsible for the missileswhich were to be deployed in Cuba. As for the second, itis not credible that the Russians were so bestially stupidas to think that .there was no possibility of U-2 reconnais-sance of Cubp.: As for the third , itis not credible thatall of the Sovie.t commanders in Cuba, to a man, would ignoretheir orders from Moscow.

ie believe that the right explanation is a combina-tion of the fourth and fifth possibilities suggested above.That is, we believe that the Russians had high confidence,so that the success of the venture (in their view) didnot de end on keeping it secret until the program was com-plete; a he same time, they were not indifferent to dis-covery, and would have preferred to keep the build-up secret,in order to confront the .S.- ith an accomplished fact;but it was judged either not possible, or as more troublethan it was worth, to camouflage the build-up successfullyagainst careful U.S. reconnaissance, the possibility ofwhich was recognized.*

If the Russians so calculated, they may have origin-ally planned to make a virtue of necessity, so that if and

-T- n arriving~ at -th viiew, we consulted several special-ists in photographic intelligence, and several other personsconcerned with the interpretation of the build-up in Cubain 1962. The majority opinion is as follows: the Rus-sians could have made at least the 15RBM portion of the pro-gram a lot harder to find, by sending the fRBls into Cubaall at once, deploying them all in a few days, and camou-flaging them; it would have been very difficult, however,to camouflage successfully the IRBM sites, which are muchlarger and much more complex, and an effort to do so mighthave seriously interfered with the work on the sites. Oneobserver has suggested that Moscow may have proved to it-self .in advance that it could not successfully camouflagethe IRBM sites, by camouflaging and photographing similarinstallations in the USSR.

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when the United States discovered the build-up the USSRcould point to its openness, and to the absence of flatlies in its misleading statements of intention, as evi-dence that its. heart was pure, that the weapons had a de-fensive purpose. However, during the build-up Ihrushcfevdid make some eriously misleading statements and did in-troduce-the.tlat lie, so the pose of innocence was notavailable to him-at the time of discovery.

It might be argued that it was stupid of the Rus-sians, giveh the decision to iislead' the United' States in pub-Tic aid private statements,' not to do what was possible toconceal the build-up at the sites. But this was stupidonly if the camouflage effort could have been successful,or would not have seriously impeded the construction; andthe Russians seem to have judged that the IRBU portion ofthe program was the obstacle, on one or both counts.

Thus the rough scheme was as follows. In the springof 1962, the USSR, after securing the approval of Castroor his successors, would continue to ship conventionalmilitary equipment to Cuba, together with bloc personnelfor training Cubans in its use, while rapidly assemblingthe personnel and equipment which were to arrive in Cubaduring July and August. In Cuba itself, the necessaryCuban personnel would be told of the character and scope:of the venture. The sites for the strategic missiles ofall types were to be selected (partly on the basis of earlierSoviet investigations), and Cubans living there were to bemoved out. While the United States even in this early periodof the build-up might be alerted by reports from Cuban of-ficials and Cuban refugees, as of mid-1962 the build-up inCuba would still look defensive, without even such conven-t ional items as bombers and submarines.

In the period of roughly July-August 1962, there wasto be a sharp and visible increase in Soviet shipments toCuba (of the personnel and equipment assembled in May andJune). Newer types of conventional material were to arrive,together with some or all of the SAM units, and materialsand equipment for the coastal defense missile installations

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and the strategic missile sites (but not yet the missilesthemselves). Some of the armored forces would come in.Some of the SAM units would be deployed in this period, andmight be soon identified by American aerial reconnaissance.Assuming that this was done, while the build-up would stillappear defensive and while the majority of U.S. observersmight regard the. SAM system in particular as a part of theseimproved-defenses, the build-up by this time would be suchas certainly to-raise questions about its eventual characterand scope, and at least some American observers could beexpected to put the guestTola (as some indeed did) of whetherthe primary purpose of the SAM sites was not that of screen-ing the deployment of strategic missiles. (In fact thatwas not their purpose, as made clear by the failure of theRussians to employ them to that end; but Moscow, as we seeit, realized that the question would be asked if reconnais-sance had identified the SAMs, and that the signal of of-ficial alarm--if any--might be given at that time.) Ameri-can suspicions of this kind would be additionally stimulatedby reports from Cuban sources.

In the period from September to the end of the yearthe missile base venture was to lie open to the sky.* Earlyin the period, the USSR and Cuba were to admit that armsand technicians were being sent to Cuba. Thereafter, theremainder of the armored forces would be brought in anddeployed in encampments,** there was to be the rapid deploy-ment of SAM units and construction of MRBM and IRBM sites,

*The Unted states, 1Y it discovered the build-up, wasnot necessarily expected to reveal it. Ehrushchev may havebelieved there was a good chance that President Kennedy,with an election coming up, would not reveal it, especiallysince, in Ehrushchev's calculations~~the President wouldbe unwilling to take military action against the missilebases and therefore would have no effective plan for deal-ing with the revealed threat.

**Some of the armored forces apparently arrived as earlyas August, some as late as mid-October.

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the shipping in of the strategic missiles, the installationcof the remainder of the SA..Ls and the deployment of thestrategic missiles, and the establishment of direct commandlinks between ioscow and Soviet forces. As suggest:' earlier,it seems likely that in the original conception al. compo-nents of the program were to become operational at aboutthe same time-, in November, although as it turned out therewas a lag in'the IREY portion of the program.

As noted previously, there was to be no effort toconceal the build-up at the sites. On the contrary, themissile-related equipment and the missiles themselves wereto be visible at the sites from the time of their arrival;and some of the strategic missiles were to be deployed, sothat they could hardly be missed by American reconnaissan. ,if any. During this period, the Russians were publicly :.-privately to describe the weapons being deployed in Cubaas having a defensive purpose, a description which seemsto have been designed to serve two purposes. If it servedto help to deceive the United States and to deter the U.S.from conducting the systematic reconnaissance which woulddiscover the missile bases, so much the better. But if itdid not do this, and if the United States seemed about todiscover the strategic missiles, the formula could serveas the form of an invitation to the U.S. to acquiesce inthe entire venture.* In this final period of the build-up,while waiting for the United States to discover it, theUSSR was to claim to be taking measures of military prepared-ness, in order to reinforce the American desire for peace,

*As it happened, the U.S. did undertake systematic re-connaissance, and the USSR in~eptember, probably well awareof.this, was emphasizing in its public statements the secondsuggested use of the formula of defensive purpose--its useas the form of an invitation to acquiesce. However, theUSSR issued no clear invitation; it did not consistentlyuse this formula, and there were some quite misleading ele-ments in some of these statements. Moreover, the Sovietambassador in the same period transmitted privately aseriously misleading statement of Soviet intti ons in Cuba.

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and was to encourage the view that a conciliatory U.S. lineon Cuba would be met with a conciliatory Soviet line ondisputed issues. If all went well, Khrushchev was to appearat the UN in November or December to conduct both the poli-tical defense of the missile bases and the new politicaloffensive which the missile bases were to support.

The USSR, while having high confidence in success,almost certaialy- recognized the possibility that the United'tates, at some point in the course o e build-up, ratherthan meekly tolerating the build-up would send a signal toMoscow that a further build-up was unacceptable--or even,if the discovery of the venture did not come until later,that some elements of the build-up would have to be removed.How did the USSR intend to manage matters if this were tohappen?

If the United States were to threaten to use forceto halt or reverse the missile base venture, the first taskwould of course be that of preventing the U.S. from strik-ing either the USSR or Cuba. This was to be done by makingclear at the outset that the USSR wished primarily to avoidwar, and would be receptive to other means of settling thedispute. The risk of an American attack on the USSR wasseen by the Soviets as very small, and of an attack evenon Cuba as small.

In the Soviet calculations of early 1962 (as indi-cated by Soviet spokesmen later), the United States, if ittook any military action at all against the missile baseventure, was most likely to impose a blockade. If theblockade were to come at any time before the end of theyear, it could block the completion of the program. TheUSSR was to attempt to prevent this by warning the UnitedStates in advance against such an stion, and by threateningto run any blockade. If the United States were neverthelessto impose the blockade or threaten other action, the USSRcould probably succeed in involving the U.S. in negotiations.

This was to be done by throwing the affair into theUnited Nations Security Council (in the anticipation ofconsiderable support for the 'reasonable'.Soviet position),and by calling at the same time for bilateral Soviet -

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American talks (a proposal which would also find much sup-port), in particular for a summit meeting. The immediateobjectives, in negotiations, would be those of deterringthe United States from raising the level (beyond the block-ade) of its military response and of inducing the UnitedStates :to end- the blockade. If the blockade were ended,the program could be completed, and the bases in Cuba wouldbe established .as a fact of life. The bases themselves'would increase greatly the deterrent to action against them;as time went on, the military problem of destroying thebases would increase, and the political problems involvedin making the necessary military effort to destroy the baseswould proportionally increase; as the course of the KoreanWar had shown, with the passage of time the United Statesand its allies (and governments they wished to influence)would be increasingly reluctant to take strong action.

The alternative (or fallback) objective was to bethat of using the bases--prior to their completion--to gainsome large concession from the United States, relating, forexample, to Germany and Berlin, overseas bases, or disarma-ment. As noted previously, negotiations on such matters,in response to a Soviet threat, would further the aim ofundermining confidence in the United States as an ally.

If the USSR were to be finally convinced of U.S.willingness to resort to force--against Cuba and if neces-sary against the USSR itself--the USSR would have to giveup the Cuban bases. Such a withdrawal might be followedby U.S. military action against Cuba to verify the with-drawal and to keep the problem from arising again, butthis was seen as quite improbable.

Differences Among Soviet Leaders

It was easy for Soviet leaders to agree among them-selves that there would be great advantages in a success-ful missile base venture. There might have been differ-ences as to whether there would be six or five or fourmajor advantages, or whether this or that advantage wouldbe the greater, or as to just how to exploit the success

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--but there could hardly be any doubt that the establish-ment of the bases would be a great coup. Neither couldthere be serious disagreement as to whether there weresome indications--some of the developments cited above inthe period between April 1961 and March 1962--that theventure might be successful. But there were certainly twoways of reading the ambiguous evidence as to the chancesfor success;-;and it is not credible that all of the Sovietleaders involved in the venture genuinely read the evidencein the same way. So it is necessary at this point to con-sider the question of differences of opinion among them.

There is no doubt that hrushchev was intimately as-sociated with the missile base venture from its conception(although he may not have conceived it). In addition tothe fact that he was the leader of the party and government,he had been the principal Soviet spokesman on every one ofthe problems which the missile base venture was apparentlydesigned to solve, and he was to be the principal spokesmanon the venture through all of its public phases, both ad-vancing and retreating. The other Soviet leaders who wereprobably associated with the venture from the early stages-- judging from their speeches on various subjects, theirinvolvement in Cuban matters, and the fact that they werethe four leaders in addition to Ehrushchev who appeared tobe concerned with the full range of Soviet affairs--areKozlov,* Brezhnev, Mikoyan and osygin. The evidence on:Suslov is less persuasive. There is little or no evidenceon the other full members of the Presidium, Kuusinen,Eirilenko, Yoronov, Shvernik, Polyanasky, and Podgorny. Itseems likely that all of the full members were consultedat some point in the venture, however, and the candidatemembers may also have been. Also, Malinovsky and a fewother military leaders who would be professionally concerned

IAs the second-ranking secretary, Kozlov might be expectedto have a large interest in something as important as therocket forces; there is some other evidence of such aninterest on his part, e.g., he gave the principal eulogyat the funeral of rocket force commander Nedelia in 1960.

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with the venture were probably asked for studies on aspectsof the venture and were probably brought into the delibera-tions.

There has been very little reporting on the attitudesof individual.leaders toward the missile base venture,either ip the...dvancing or in the retreating phase. Mostof the speculation on differences--not in reports, but in-aarticles by journalists and studies by other observers--hasbeen in terms of (a) Ehrushchev (the bull) versus the mili-tary (the bears), or (b) Ehrushchev and one wing of themilitary (the bulls) versus another wing of the military(the bears), or (c) the military (the bulls) versus Khru-

shchev (the bear). There is one report known to us whichsupports either the first or the second of these conjec-tures--to the effect that two Soviet marshals, Moskalenkoand Golikov, opposed the venture in the early 1962 discus-sions and were demoted (as they were) as a result; thesource of this report said further that Khrushchev madethe decision to go ahead with the venture and that it "defi-nitely" was not imposed on him. And there are two reportswhich support the opposite conjecture--to the effect thatthe military urged the venture on a reluctant Khrushchev(we would not be surprised if he said this, as he wouldhave no pride of authorship after the failure). Finally,there are two reports that Malinovsky opposed the withdrawalof the missiles, but this would not necessarily mean thathe favored deploying them in Cuba in the first place.*

We think that either the first or the second--prob-ably the second--conjecture is correct, provided that itis recognized that Ehrushchev would have had the support(whether honest or not) of many other political leaders aswell. We think this on the basis of developments both

*Nalnovsty (and others) might have taken privately thesame position that the Chinese Communists have taken atthe tops of their voices publicly: that it was a mistakeof "adventurism" to put the missiles in, but a mistake of"capitulationism" to take them out.

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before and after the venture. For one thing, classifiedSoviet military documents of dates prior to the venturestrongly suggested that military leaders generally weremore conservative than Khrushchev, less confident of theSoviet deterrent, less confident of Soviet preparedness,less willing.to take serious risks. (There was also somereporting to-:this effect.) For another thing, if themilitary had-puoshed the venture through against a reluc-tant. Khrushchev, the spectacular and humiliating failure

-of the venture would almost certainly have caused someheads to roll among Soviet military leaders since lastOctober; and this has not happened, with one possibleexception attributable to other causes.

Finally, we think that the venture had Khrushchev'spersonal stamp.** Another observer has suggested that theventure had the look of some of Khrushchev's earlier ini-tiatives--deStalinization, the New Lands program, the"Spirit of Camp David," the two reconciliations with Tito,and the inflation of Soviet rocket successes into the Missile

*A British intelligence analyst speculates that a lower-level Soviet military figure was made the scapegoat for thefailure of the missile base venture. His candidate is Col.Gen. S. P. Ivanov, who, he believes, was concerned with thequestion of foreign military capabilities, and was a likelyman to answer such questions as that of the form and speedof an American military response. Ivanov, the source says,was removed- from that post in November li2 ivanov woujaseem to us an unsatisfactory scapegoat, because the basicerror was not a technical one but the judgment that theUnited States would be unwilling to use military force.

**We cannot guess where the idea of the venture origin-ated; if not with Ehrushchev himself, then with anotherpolitical leader, or with one of the 'progressive' militaryfigures, or with the Cubans (as at least one report asserts);our point is simply that, wherever the idea originated,Ehrushchev made it his own and was its foremost advocate.

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Gap Hoax; we would add; the deadline for a German treaty,and the surprise attacks on the Chinese at party confer-ences. The features cited by that observer were: thatit was bold (in the sense of imaginative), that it pro-mised quick results at small cost;,and that it was notthought throughti.we would add, that it had a large elementof surprise,:nd that it was saturated with wishful think-ing. -We mean the term "wishful thinking" to apply to Ehru-shchev's assessment of the chances of success, and we meanthe term "not thought through" to apply to his failure toconsider carefully the consequences of failure.

If Khrushchev was the principal sponsor of the.ven-ture, why then did its failure not cause his head to roll?There. is, indeed, some evidence that EhrusEichev's positiondid weaken, from about November 1962 to March 1963, andTWseems certain that the failure of the missile base ven-ture was a factor. But since March 1963 he has reassertedhis pre-eminence; there had apparently not developed anycoalition of leaders so strategically placed in the party,police and military apparatuses as to be capable of forcinghim out, even if the Cuban venture--following his otherfailures--gave them good reason to try. Moreover, theplans for the missile base venture were probably adoptedwith only a few dissents. On this view, while there wereprobably several leaders--both political and military--whowere privately bearish and others who may well have politelyzpressed their reservations, only a few Soviet leaders

(perhaps Moskalenko and Golikov) tried hard to dissuadeKhrushchev. Acquiescence would have been politically theprudent course: if the venture succeeded, those who acqui-esced would have a share in the credit; if it failed, theywould be in the best possible company.

The Net Assessment

To recapitulate: Ehrushchev, probably without wide-spread opposition from other political and military lead-ers, calculated that the risks were low at each stage ofthe missile base venture; that, with luck, the build-upwould be an accomplished fact before discovery; that the

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United States, at whatever time it discovered the missiles,would probably acquiesce; that even if it did not acquiesce,the United States would be unwilling to take military actionbeyond a possible blockade (even if the USSR persisted inthe build-up despite U.S. expressions of alarm), and couldprobably betied up in negotiations which might permit thecompletion oftthe program or in which Moscow could gain im-portant-concessions; and finally, in the worst case, that,if these calculations were mistaken and the USSR were forced

' to'withdraw the missiles, Cuba itself could very probablybe saved.

Ehrushchev was, of course, mistaken in his basicestimate, as the United States proved to be willing to usewhatever degree of military force was necessary to effectthe withdrawal of the strategic missiles, and proved tobe unwilling to let itself be tied up in negotiations orto give him substantial concessions. He was right, how-ever, in thinking that, if things went wrong, he would begiven time to withdraw the missiles and could maintain theSoviet position in Cuba.

There are various factors which may have contributedto Erushchev's miscalculation. The Soviet diplomatic andintelligence services may have contributed to it: they may,for example, have reported conversations that encourageda faulty assessment; they may have misread the Americanpress (things can always be found in the press to supportany opinion one cares to support); or, in view of the heavySoviet reliance on stolen documents, they may have got holdof some misleading document (it need not have been an Ameri-can document; it could have been a report to a Western gov-ernment on a conversation, or even a faulty intelligenceassessment by a Western government of U.S. intentions ina hypothetical situation).

Further, we suggested earlier that Ehrushchev, indiscussing the missile base venture with other leaders,had the problem that many leaders have--namely, that hissubordinates tend to agree with him. We suspect thatseveral of those consulted by him exaggerated their favorfor the venture, and others who did not favor it failedto state their disfavor frankly.

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Further, we have previously described the missilebase venture as having been saturated in wishful thinking;and we regard this factor as the most important in Khru-shchev's miscalculation.* While we do not agree with thoseobservers who have described Khrushchev's misjudgment as"incredible"'and who have said that the President "couldnot" have acted~ in any other way than he did, we disagreemore strongly with those who regard the venture as having-been entirely rational, indeed as almost inevitable. Themost important factor in the venture was Khrushchev's read-ing of the record of U.S. actions and statements with respectto Communist challenges: while it seems to us true thatthe American record as of early 1962 suggested a possibilityof success for a missile base venture, that possilitywas marginal. We submit that it was wishful thinking thatconverted a marginal possibility of success into an estimateof robable success.. It was wishful thinking that failedto cons er that, if the Soviet gains from a successfulmissile base venture were to be so great, it was probablethat the Uited States would recognize what was at stakeand therefore probable that the United States would dowhatever was necessary to deny such gains to its principalantagonist. On at least three occasions prior to early1962--in April 1961, June 1961, and July 1961--the Presidenthad warned Khrushchev against attempting to make gains ofthis character; but, perhaps because the President had notwarned against the specific venture of deploying strategicmissiles in Cuba, Khrushchev in considering the venturehad chosen not to heed those warnings.

Moreover, in addition to ghrushchev's miscalculationwhich converted a possibility into a probability, the ven-turn was not thought thro , in that the consequences ofa failure were not fu y we ghed. Failure would mean a

*ome or our colleagues have objected to the term "wish-ful thinking." In using this term, we are not moralizing.We mean simply the process of finding reasons--exaggeratingthe favorable considerations, minimizing the unfavorableones--to justify what one wants to believe or do.

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withdrawal in the face of an American ultimatum, and sucha retreat would make most of Khrushchev's problems--thatis, the problems he had thought to solve with the missilebases--worse than they were before.

Everyone would then know that the Soviet positionin the balance of power was inferior (just as Departmentof Defense officials had said); there would be importantpolitical gains for the United States; there would be even'less prospect for substantial Soviet gains in negotiations;the governments and peoples of the underdeveloped countrieswould be even less inclined to look to the USSR; the Chi-nese Communist challenge would increase; and most of theUSSR's problems with Cuba would be exacerbated.

To have foreseen, iA the spring of 1962, the missilebase venture as it developed in the next several months,would mean to have foreseen that the above two elementsin the problem--Khrushchev's wishful thinking about thechances of success, and his unwillingness to think throughthe consequences of failure--would be as large as theywere.* In other words, wo who have engaged in this recon-struction think that the reasonable estimate, as of spring1962, was what the estimate in fact was--that the USSRmight deploy strategic missiles in Cuba but robab wouldnot, as Khrushchev should estimate, and robs wou d esti-mate, that the Unite Staes would regar oSeriiegicmissile bases there as intolerable and would destroy themor force their dismantling.

*Another way of putting it: to have accepted at facevalue the report of January 1962, that Khrushchev haddecided to redress the imbalance of power by the end of1962, might have led one to conclude that the deploymentof strategic missiles in Cuba would represent his besthope of achieving that goal within the time specified;but one would still have had to conclude that Khrushchevwould persist in that intention even after considering allthe'objections to such a venture, i.e., that he wouldthink wishfully and would fail to think it through.

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*-3T

III. The Progress of the Venture, April - August 1962

We take up here the management of the Soviet missilebase venture in the spring and summer of 1962, before anyof the strategic missiles were sent into Cuba. We discussthe Soviet negofiations with Castro, the clandestine intro-duction into'Caba of elements of the program, the ef fort'to deceive the United States about Soviet intentions inCuba, the mixed evidence as to these intentions, aspectsof Soviet foreign policy related to the venture, d theSoviet assessment of American intentions with respect tointervening in Cuba.

The First Stage, April - June

Soviet Negotiations with Castro: As detailejI in theAppendix to this paper, by mid-"arch the Cuban Communisteffort--encouraged by Moscow--to take power from Ca tro hadclearly failed, but the Soviet effort to deceive Ca tro intobelieving that an American invasion was: being pla d, andthat a deterrent was urgently needed, had been a co pletesuccess. It was apparently between mid-March and mad-Aprilthat the Russians additionally persuaded Castro that thedeployment of strategic missiles in Cuba, rather than aformal Soviet commitment to defend Cuba, was the an wer tohis problem. As Castro put it in his November 1963 accountof these negotiations:

We thought of a proclamation, an al-liance, conventional military aid. TheRussians explained to us that their con-cern was twofold: first, they wanted tosave the Cuban revolution..., and at thesame time they wished to avoid a worldconflict. They reasoned that if conven-tional military aid was the extent oftheir assistance, the United States might

' not hesitate to instigate an invasion...

Although Castro's account of the negotiations does iotprecisely date the time, after mid-March, that agreement

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on the missile base venture was reached, it was probablyno later than 11 April, on which date the Soviet pressfor the first time referred to Castro as "comrade"; thisPravda article also endorsed Castro's organizational meas-ures (designed to prevent any repetition of the attemptto take his power from him), his domestic policies, andhis purge of Escalante; and on 15 April Moscow placedits greetings to Cuba, in the Soviet May Day slogans, atthe end of the Soviet greetings to the bloc countries and

' 'ahead of the greeting to Yigoslavia.

An additional reason for believing that agreementon the missile base venture had been reached by mid-Aprilis an eyewitness report, from the former assistant directorof the Torrens School (a few miles south of Havana), thaton 17 April Raul Castro visited the school and took awayblueprints of the buildings and grounds, and that withina week much new construction was underway on the 770-acreproperty. Soviet personnel took over this area withintwo or three months, and it apparently became the mainheadquarters for Soviet military missions in Cuba. Thejudgment as to mid-April is also supported by the opinionof planning specialists that agreement on the venture prob-ably had to be reached no later than April, if the USSRwished to have time to accomplish smootbly all the thingsthat had to be done.

Although a Soviet-Cuban trade pact for 1962 had beensigned only in December, fresh negotiations were undertakenthroughout April. On 2 May the USSR and Cuba concluded anew technical assistance agreement for the development ofCuban chemicaland fertilizer industries, and Moscow appar-ently extended another credit of $100 million. There wereindications that the USSR had decided to make available tothe Cubans whatever they needed, including consumer goodsin short supply. In late May, yet another Soviet economicdelegation arrived, this one headed by candidate memberof the politburo, Rashidov; and on the next day Havana

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(rather than Moscow) announced the recall of Soviet Ambas-sador Eudryavstev, who had apparently been offered andaccepted as a scapegoat.*

On 3 June,' Khrushchev, speaking in Moscow to a thou-sand young Cubans who had spent a year in the USSR, praisedCastro in str.ong'terms, observed that "We are .helping Cubawith weapons-and other things," and promised continued aid.Possibly reflecting a promise that the Cubans would eventu-ally be given control of the strategic missiles to be de-ployed in Cuba, he noted also that "Even help with weaponsis of use only when these weapons are held firmly in thehands of those to whom they are given..." On 12 June, anew Soviet ambassador (Alekseyev) was named, and on 13 JunePravda reprinted an article by Roca on the Escalante casewhich accepted Castro's version of it. In the same period,there continued to be reports from Communist sources aboutSoviet concern over Castro's relations with the Communists,the regime's disorganization and inefficiency, its danger-ously provocative attitude toward the United States, andits excessive encouragement of armed insurrection in LatinAmerica. These reports, while probably true, may havebeen thought to contribute to deceiving the United Statesabout Soviet intentions.**

Related Problems: The USSR in the spring of 1962seemed to be vacillating on East-West issues while harden-ing its attitude toward the underdeveloped countries andtoward the Chinese.

In his speeches in the latter half of May--in Bulgariaand in reporting in Moscow on his Bulgarian trip--hrushchev

*Prior to his recall, Kudryavtsev in private' conversa-tions in effect admitted that he had been involved in theCuban Communist effort to take power from Castro; he com-mented despondently on the difficulties of helping theCommunists without antagonizing the Castroites.

**These reports had reached an impressive volume as earlyas March, when the Russians were setting up the Cubans forthe missile base venture.

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appeared to be a man who had been brooding heavily on thestrategic situation.* After speaking at length of thismatter in speeches of 15, 16, 18 and 19 May, on 25 May Khru-shchev reiterated his complaint that the West would not givehim what he wanted. The Western powers, he said,

have not understood or do not want toundewstand the changes in the balance of

. power-which have taken place in the inter-national arena in recent years, and arestill trying to carry on their policy frompositions of strength. The author of thisinsane doctrine...has died, but the doctrinelives on; and the leaders of the Westernpowers...are completely unwilling to abandonit...

Ehrushchev was well aware that there had not been a changein the balance of power which would permiThe USSR to get

*He naa been given additional cause to brood, in aspeech by Deputy Secretary Gilpatric in Monterey on 2 May.Mr. Gilpatric had spoken in these terms of the anticipatedbalance of power in 1965:

... we now have in our planning, atleast as far as 1965, a pretty definiteforce structure. We will have nearly 950bombers... We will have some 1500 ICBMsoperational, including Atlases, Titans,Minutemen, and Polarises. We will havemore than double the number of alertweapons that we have today... Those war-heads will be carrying a. yield, a megaton-nage, of more than twice the strikingpower by 1965 that we have /1a of June19627... That is why we feel that no mat-ter"what the Soviets can do,...we willmaintain the margin of superiority thatwe possess today.

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what it wanted; indeed, the most significant developmentof the previous year had been the West's discovery of justthat, that the balance of power remained considerably inits favor. And the Cuban missile base venture was to aimprecisely at .altering that balance.*

Ehrushchev and Gromyko in April, perhaps on the basisof their reading of Secretary Rusk's proposals .to Gromykois Geneva the month before, both professed to see hope fora Berlin agreement. They may actually have had optimisticexpectations. They were in any case disappointed, and per-haps furious, when Adenauer promptly attacked certain keyfeatures of the Secretary's proposals and when the Secretaryhimself, seconded by General Clay, publicly contradictedthe hopeful appraisals of Khrushchev and Gromyko. By lateMay: the Soviet praan was indicating no expectation of pro-gress on Berlin. (One close observer believes that the deci-sion to go ahead with the missile base venture in Cuba wasnot made firm until May, when Moscow recognized that itshope for a Berlin settlement was groundless; while this ispossible, for various reasons cited previously we preferan earlier date.)

Following the U.S. decision to resume nuclear test-ing, and the Soviet decision on the missile base venture,Khrushchev and other Soviet spokesmen in April were openlypessimistic (perhaps they had always been privately pes-sinistic) about the chance of success for the disarmament

*We have been asked how Khrushchev, who in this 25 Mayspeech and other speeches showed his recognition of theability of the West to act from "positions of strength"and therefore his recognition of the importance of reallyaltering the balance of power, could have gone on to con-clude that the missile base venture was one of low risk.We stand on our earlier answer: that it was wishful think-

- ing to estimate that the U.S. would acquiesce and that, ifnot, there was only a small chance that the U.S. wouldstrike either Cuba or the USSR. Se was right, however, inthinking that he would be given an avenue of escape.

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talks. In late May, Khrushchev, reporting n his Bulgariantrip, declared that present Western leaders were not seri-ous about disarmament. And a few days later the Soviet dele-gate at Geneva reversed the Soviet position and rejectedan agreed draft declaration against war propaganda. TheUSSR's Geneva.delegation had apparently been overruled byMoscow, presuiably because the danger of Western aggressionwas to be the iitionale for the imminent increase in meatand butter prices. Before and after the mid-June recess

'-(for a month) of the disarmament conference in Geneva, Sovietspokesmen (including Khrushchev) spoke of the prospects fordisarmament as poor.

In May, pro-Communist forces in Laos--violating thecease-fire agreement and Communist promises--extended theircontrol over much of northwestern Laos, which was soon fol-lowed by the dispatch of U.S. and other SEATO forces toThailand. In the same month, the USSR and Indonesia con-cluded a new and unique military aid agreement. This pro-vided for the rapid delivery of some $90 million worth ofSoviet military equipment, including aircraft, submarines,and SANs. The submarines and bombers were to have Sovietcrews--the first time that units had ever been detachedfrom the Soviet O/B to go out into the world--and thus couldbe used at once in an invasion of West New Guinea, as Mos-cow reportedly hoped they would be. While the USSR had ap-parently decided some months earlier to emphasize militaryrather than economic aid to the underdeveloped countries,this was another leap forward in Soviet thinking on theunderdeveloped areas--the same state of mind that had beenexpressed in the decision to go ahead with the Cuban mis-sile base venture; the two decisions may have been made at

.- .3.

about the same time.* In June, while hailing the settlementin Laos as an example to East and West in their approachto other problems, the USSR moved quickly to supply thiscomplex military equipment (with crews) to the Indonesians;and a Soviet military leader who visited Indonesia in Junereportedly urgedthe Indonesians to attack West New Guinea.

-Khrushchev in his 19 May speech in Sofia expressedin unusually strong terms his disappointment with the re-sults of his earlier policy toward the underdeveloped coun-tries. Observing that the truths of Marxism-Leninism were"not always acceptable to many leaders of the national lib-eration movement," hrushchev spoke of the tendency of suchleade:rs to reach an "agreement with reaction." Citing as-sertions that "socialism is being built" in newly-independ-ent Asian and African countries, he asked sarcastically,"What type of socialism do they mean?" He went on to as-sert that "only" through the Soviet model could "victorybe achieved and correct solutions found.' Those leaderswho did not understand this, he concluded, would be suc=ceeded by those who could understand.

Moscow also hardened toward the Chinese in this period.In mid-April, the Sino-Soviet economic (trade and technical)talks resumed, and the Soviets soon made clear that the fi.-nancial and technical assistance urgently needed by the Chi-nese economy would not be forthcoming; moreover, the USSRwas unwilling to provide even a token new credit to China.In late April, Moscow and Peiping resumed their polemicson issues in dispute (including the issue of whether the

eThere has been speculation that the USSR at the timewas contemplating a missile base venture in Indonesia aswell as in Cuba. However, such bases in Indonesia wouldobviously not have the advantages of bases in Cuba. Ifthe Indonesian venture was related at all to the Cubanventure, it seems more likely that the former was designedto divert attention from the latter, or (we think) to bea final test of Western intentions prior to the sendingof strategic missiles into Cuba.

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USSR was sufficiently aggressive toward the West), althoughthese were not as bitter as the exchanges two years earlier.In late May, another Soviet letter to Peiping rejected theChinese request for another conference of all the parties.And in June, the USSR gave institutional expression to the

split in the bloc by reorganizing CBMA to include all ofthe bloc states loyal to Moscow and to leave outside theChinese. and .thelr supporters. The USSR, having failed tosilence the'Chinese, was again trying to weaken and dis-

* credit Peiping, while moving ahead with the missile baseventure which it hoped would cut the ground from under theChinese case.

Assessment of U.S. Intentions: Throughout the springof 1962 Soviet spokesmen expressed concern that the UnitedStates intended to take military action against Cuba, butsuch statements did not suggest an immediate concern.*Ehrushchev himself expressed emphatically in May what seemedto be his real concern at the time--concern over the Presi-dent's statements (of March) that the United States mighttake the initiative in some circumstances with regard toemploying nuclear weapons. As Khrushchev put it on 19 May:

... the imperialists put their stakeon violence... The President of the UnitedStates himself...stated that the forces ofthe Western states and of the countries ofsocialism are now equal... Later, unfortu-nately, President Kennedy...embarked on the

e~here was perhaps some ground flo concern in the estab-lishment in Miami, in March 1962, of an interrogation cen-ter for Cuban refugees, in which they were questioned about0/B and other matters of interest to an invading force.In any case, the Russians probably saw the interrogationcenter as strengthening the possibility that the U.S. woulddiscover the build-up in Cuba, i.e., the refugees were prob-ably expected to provide reports which might well stimulatereconnaissance.

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dangerous path of his predecessors, resort-ing to threats against the Soviet Union.He even went so far as to say that undercertain circumstances the United Stateswill possibly take 'the initiative in anuclear -conflict with the Soviet Union'-- that-iLs,...will be the first to strikea blow...-

As previously noted, Ehrushchev had almost certainly cal-culated that the United States would not be willing tostrike either the USSR or Cuba in order to disrupt themissile base venture. In this speech and in others in May,he may have been reflecting some second thoughts on thisquestion.

One development which may have encouraged him againcame in late May, when, following fresh operations of pro-Communist forces in Laos in violation of the cease-fireagreement (operations which gained them much additionalground), about 5,000 U.S. troops plus token forces fromother SEATO countries were sent to Thailand to stabilizethe situation. The Soviets probably had not encouragedthe Pathet Lao violation, and may even have discouragedthese pro-Communist forces from making further advances.However, the American action could be read (and was read,:in some quarters) as drawing a line in Thailand but ac-cepting another accomplished fact (the new Communist gains)in Laos, a tact accomplished contrary to existing agree-ments and promises. The Russians of course knew that thesituation in Laos was unfavorable for U.S. involvement, asthe Laotians were virtually worthless as allies and thelogistics problem would be enormous; but the fact remained,as it had remained after the building of the Berlin Wall,that the Communists had been able to get away with something.The Russians may have taken this as another piece of evidencefor the proposition that the United States would accept anaccomplished fact if the fact did not conflict sharply witha clearly-defined vital interest.

hrushchev reiterated his concern about the circum-stances in which the United States might use nuclear wea-pons in letters of 10 and 12 June to the Japanese premier

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and British Laborites. He asserted in both letters thatPresident Kennedy had advocated initiating a nuclear a:tackon the USSR. He was talking about this again in a 19 Junespeech in Rumania. Observing that the "American imperi-alists would like to change the balance of power in theworld in their favor" by inducing the bloc "to reduceexpenditures on defense," Khrushchev went on to explainwhy this reduction could not be made. He referred tothe "boastful speeches" of American and West German gen-erals, and again cited the President's remarks of March.In Ehrushchev's words in the 19 June. speech, "The Presidentof the United States himself...has said that under certaincircumstances the United States may be the first to takethe initiative and start a nuclear war against our country."

So far as we know, there was no direct reply tohrushchev's overtures of this kind in May and June for

clarification and reassurance on the matter of Americanuse of. nuclear weapons. On 16 June, however, SecretaryMcNamara, in a speech at Ann Arbor, made some remarkswhich may have been to some degree reassuring. (Khru-shchev had apparently not read--or at least had not stad-ied--Mr. cNamara's 16 June speech at the time of his 19June speech cited above.)

Speaking of American strategy in a general nuclearwar, Mr. McNamara said:

The U.S. has come to the conclusionthat, to the extent feasible, basic mili-tary strategy in a possible general nuclearwar should be approached in much the sameway that more conventional military opera-tions have been regarded in the past. Thatis to say, principal military objectives,in the event of a nuclear war stemming froma major attack on the alliance, should bethe destruction of the enemy's militaryforces, not of his civilian population. Thevery strength and nature of the allianceforces make it possible for -s to retain,even in the "face of a massive surprise at-tack, sufficient reserve striking power todestroy an enemy society if driven to it...

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."

Such a counterforce strategy, as both American andSoviet military writers soon noted, would be most effectiveif nuclear weapons were used in a first strike; in a retal-iatory strike, .most of the targets would no longer be there.*However, the implication of the speech was that Americannuclear weapons..would be used only in retaliation against"a massive surprise attack."

We do not suggest that Mr. McNamara's speech encour-aged Ehrushchev to think that he could stand firm behindthe venture if the missile bases should be discovered (evenafter the program was completed) if the United Statesshould credibly threaten to strike the USSR if the missileswere not withdrawn; that is, American military superioritywould still be such that Khrushchev would have to backdown. However, in an ironic role for Mr. McNamara (whoseprevious speeches had made him for Ehrushchev a figure ina nightmare), this speech seemed to reduce the force ofPresident Kennedy's warnings of March 1962. Khrushchev hadseemed to be concerned, after the President's remarks, thatthe United States might take the initiative in using nuclearweapons to repel a challenge expressed in some other formthan that of a massive surprise attack; and the Presidenthad not offered to spare the cities. Moscow was not happyabout the 'no-cities' doctrine either--Soviet commentatorssoon rejected it as "cynical" and "deliberately mislead-ing"--but the new doctrine clearly did not cause the Rus-sians as much concern as had the President's statements ofMarch.

*soviet writers were also quick to note that a counter-force doctrine requires excellent intelligence on enemymissile sites, and that adherents of this doctrine wouldof course seek inspection of armaments under the guiseof disarmament.

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The Second Stage, July - August

The First Elements of the Program: Raul Castro ar-rived in Moscow on 2 July, at the invitation of the Minis-try of Defense.,- on a mission which is still obscure. Wesurmise, however, that his mission had something to do withthe administration of the missile base venture--perhapsthe conclusio .of a status-of-forces agreement.* He may'Elso have attempted again, as one source has reported, tohave Cuba taken into the Warsaw Pact, and, if so, he failedagain. An Indian Communist leader has referred to Raul'sconclusion of some kind of "treaty" with the USSR duringthis July visit, and it is possible that Raul was givenyet another'worthless promise that the USSR would indeeddefend Cuba if necessary. Whatever the form of the Sovietassurance, Raul during his trip found occasion to boastthat his negotiations with the Russians had changed thebalance of power in the world--a remark which preciselydescribed the aim of the missile base venture. After Raul'sdeparture in mid-July, without the customary communique,shipments of unidentifiable material to Cuba increasedsharply.

There were 15 Soviet dry cargo shipments to Cuba inJuly, and offloading of unidentified equipment began in theBanes area in July. These shipments probably included someof the equipment for the coastal defense issile sites andmay have included some of the equipment for the SAM sites.

Soviet dry cargo shipments (including some passengerships) jumped to 43 in August. Several ports in additionto Banes were restricted at various times during Augustwhile Soviet ships were offloading; Soviet personnel handledthe offloadings. At ariel, the most secure port, a con-crete wall at least ten feet high was built in mid-August,probably looking forward to the offloading of MRBMs. There

ie as ro o e French journalist Jean Daniel inNovember 1963 that Raul's visit of July 1962 was "to dis-cuss ways and means of installing the missiles." However,

- most of the arrangements must have been ande prior to Raul'strip, because shipments of missile-related equipment beganso soon afterward.

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were reports throughout August of the offloading and move-ment through Cuba of large numbers of Soviet personnel (morethan 3,000 were believed to be present by the end of August),*and many reports of the offloading of unspecified types ofmissiles.

SAM equipment began to arrive, or continued to arrive,in the first half, of August. Following a gap in the photo-graphy between S and 29 August, additional photographs of29 August showed the deployment of SANs in western Cuba--adevelopment not in itself surprising, as the USSR had beenengaged in similar programs in Indonesia, Iraq, and Egyptin the previous nine months. Some MIG-21s were probablydelivered in August, along with more complex radar equip-ment; and the cruise missiles and the missile-carrying Eomarpatrol boats were first observed in August.

It was later reported that farmers were evacuatedin late August from areas which became MRBM! sites, and theestimated initiation date for one of the IRM sites was lateAugust. Further, it is estimated that the materials andequipment necessary to construct the MRBM and IRBM launchpositions (but not the missiles themselves) probably arrivedin Cuba in the latter half of August.** However, photo-graphy of late August and early September which covered allsix of the 1MRBM site areas showed no activity identifiableas associated with the preparation of MRB sites; and therewas not even an isolated report of preparations for IRBMs.

*It is not Enown whether these included units later de-ployed with the armored groups.

**The USSR ¢id not get started soon enough or the IEEcomponent; even if the program had not been interrupted,it would have been impossible to complete construction ofthe 12 IRBM launch positions until the end of the year,more than a onth after all other weapons systems were tobecome operational. If a fourth IRB1 site was planned, asseems likely, this would not have been completed untilearly 1963.

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In late August, when the Western press was carryingstories of the arrival of large numbers of Soviet person-nel and of the secret unloading of Soviet ships, Sovietbroadcasts about Soviet shipping to Cuba emphasized theeconomic nature of the cargoes, without going so far as todeny that military equipment was included. Also servingthe interest- of deception were Cuban feelers for an im-provement i .. Ctban-American relations.

-- - Soviet Behavior: Soviet behavior on other mattersin this July-August period continued to be mixed, throwinglittle light on Soviet intentions in Cuba.

On 2 July, at a time of Chinese Communist concernover the possibility of an American-supported Chinese Na-tionalist attack on the mainland, Khrushchev encouraged abelief in his continued caution by making only a vaguestatement of support for Peiping. This statement cameafter the United States had disavowed support for anyNationalist invasion, and was much weaker than his 1958statement.

On 4 July, Ehrushchev stated publicly that therehad been "progress" in Soviet-American talks. On thenext day, a TASS account of one of President Kennedy'spress conferences gave the Soviet audience an impressionof an American desire to find a peaceful solution to all.East-lest problems.

During July, however, Nikoyan, visiting Indonesia,is reported toWest New Guinea, using the new Soviet weapons and Sovietbomber and submarine crews provided earlier in the summer.As previously noted, it seems possible that the USSR hopedfor hostilities in the area as a final test of Western in-tentions, before strategic missiles were sent into Cuba.If so, this hope was soon disappointed by the negotiationsencouraged by the United States.

In late July, the USSR announced its intention toresume nuclear testing (it resumed on 1 August). Also,Ehrushchev began to say privately that he was thinking ofbringing the Berlin problem to the United Nations in theautumn before signing a treaty.

. - 51 -

By early August, Khrushchev had persuaded importantWestern diplomats in Moscow that he did indeed plan tosign a separate treaty if there were no early progress onBerlin. In the last two weeks of August, Khrushchev con-tinued to speak privately of plans to go to the UN inNovember, and-of his confidence that the United Stateswould not "fight for Berlin." As Moscow's 11 Septemberstatement was'to show, the USSR planned to exploit Western'fears about Berlin in its effort to gain American acquies-cence in the build-up in Cuba--mainly by offering to beconciliatory about Berlin if the United States were to beconciliatory about Cuba.

Concurrently, following up private talks which hadgone on for some months, Gromyko sent to Secretary Ruska draft agreement on the non-proliferation of nuclearweapons. Immediately thereafter, the Chinese Communist.--who were told on 25 August of the Soviet-American dis-cussions on non-proliferation and were incensed by this--opened an offensive against "subversion" (clearly, Sovietsubversion) in the Chinese party. It is conceivable thatthe Chinese also learned of- the Cuban missile base ventureat that time, and that their fresh attacks on Soviet poli-cies in part reflected their anger both that the USSR wasdiscussing a non-proliferation agreement with the UnitedStates and that advanced. weapons were going to Cuba but notto China, in a venture which if successful would greatlyimprove the Soviet position in the Sino-Soviet dispute.

Assessment of U.S. Intentions: Ehrushchev in Julymay still have been seeking clarification and reassuranceon the matter of American use of nuclear weapons. In May,in first commenting on the President's statements (ofMarch) that the United States might in some circumstancestake the initiative in employing nuclear weapons, Khrushchevhad said that the President had made this threat despitehis (the President's) estimate that the military strengthof the bloc was equal to that of the West. In a speech of10 July, at the World Conference on General Disarmamentand Peace, Khrushchev took note of the changes--which hadin fact been evident since the previous attumn--in Westernestimates of Soviet strength. Whereas the President oncebelieved, Khrushchev said, that Soviet military strength

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was equal to American strength, the President now believedthat the "balance of forces has changed to the advantageof the United States." The American belief that the UnitedStates could "win a war" was dangerous, Khrushchev continued,and Mr. McNamara's 'no cities' concept set forth in the 16June speech at Ann Arbor was "monstrous" in that it soughtto set up rules for nuclear warfare. "Certain responsiblestatesmen,"...Eirushchev went on (without naming the Presi-dent), "even declare openly their readiness to take...the

' 'initiative in a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union."Suggesting that Mr. Mcoamara's Ann Arbor speech had notremoved (although it may have reduced) his anxiety on thispoint, Ehrushchev went on to say that it would be betterto recognize that the consequences of war would be "catas-trophic" no matter which side began it. This was the posi-tion which was in fact to govern him during the crisis inOctober.

Just as in his speeches in May, Ehrushchev in thisJuly speech may have been reflecting some doubts as towhether he had correctly assessed the risks of the Cubanmissile base venture. However, Ehrushchev might be expectedto emphasize the threat of American nuclear weapons in aspeech to a disarmament conference and also just prior tothe Soviet resumption of nuclear testing. If he were reallyreflecting doubts as to his calculations on Cuba, he appar-ently found reassurances in short order. It was soon afterthis speech that there was a marked increase in Soviet ship-ments to Cuba.

On the 26 July Cuban holiday, both Fidel Castro andFrol Kozlov charged again that the United States was prepar-ing to attack Cuba. Kozlov remarked that the "old warningsaddressed to the imperialists are still in effect." Inas-much as the "old warnings" had been non-specific, the Cubansstill did not have assurances of Soviet military supportagainst U.S. military action.

Ehrushchev later said privately that he had come tobelieve, in August, that the United States was indeed pre-paring to attack Cuba; and Moscow renewed its public chargesto 'this effect in late August. Both of the U-2 flights inAugust were illuminated by radars which appeared to be

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_

tracking them, and the Russians may have surmised, at theend of August, that the United States had just got photo-graphic evidence of the deployment of SAMs in Cuba. Sovietcommentaries at the time, however, suggested an estimatethat the United States did not intend to attack, while theyexpressed concern over a possible change in this intention.This line came-through clearly in those commentaries whichtook note that some U.S. leaders were frankly advocatingati attack on CuiT and which went on to contend that Presi-dent Kennedy, who on 29 August had stated his belief thatit would be a "mistake" to invade Cuba, might be broughtto change his mind. Moscow at this time renewed its cautiousexpressions of Soviet support for Cuba in the event ofanother "dangerous adventure" by the United States.

Recapitulation

By mid-March, the Cuban Communist effort to take powerfrom Castro--an effort aimed at creating a secure politicalbase for the missile base venture--had clearly failed, butthe Soviet effort to persuade Castro that an American inva-sion of Cuba was being planned, and that a deterrent wasurgently needed, had proved successful. By mid-April, theUSSR also succeeded in persuading him that the deploymentof strategic missiles in Cuba was the answer. The agree-ment on the missile bases was followed by new economic agree-ments, by the recall of the disfavored Soviet ambassador,and by Khrushchev's public promises of continued aid.

In the same period of spring 1962, developments out-side Cuba confirmed Ehrushchev's judgment that he neededthe Cuban missile bases. American spokesmen continued toexpress confidence that the balance of power favored andwould continue to favor the United States, and hrushchevreiterated his complaint that the lest was continuing toact from "positions of strength" and would not give himwhat he wanted. The Soviet hope or even expectation of aBerlin settlement was disappointed, and there was no pro-gress'on disarmament. hrushchev in this period expressedin strong terms his disappointment with the results of hisearlier policy toward the underdeveloped countries, andMoscow's recent decision to emphasize military rather than

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economic aid to such countries was expressed spectacularlyin a new military aid agreement with Indonesia, which pro-vided equipment and Soviet crews which could be used foran invasion of West New Guinea. And the Sino-Soviet rela-tionship continued to deteriorate.

Throughout the spring of 1962 Soviet spokesmen ez-pressed concern-that the United States intended to takemilitary action -against Cuba, but Khrushchev's real concernseemed to be over the President's statements (of March)that the United States might in some circumstances takethe initiative in using nuclear weapons. Krushchev mayhave been having some second thoughts on the question ofwhether the risks were low in the Cuban venture. If. so,he may have been encouraged again by the U.S. response tofresh operations by pro-Communist forces in Laos, a re-sponse which could be read as acceptance of another ac-complished fact. Also, his concern over the President'sremarks of March may have been reduced somewhat by Mr.McNamara's presentation of an American counter-force strat-egy. Khrushchev at this time admitted that "weapons" werebeing sent to Cuba, but Soviet complaints about the Cubanstended to serve the interest of deception.

Raul Castro's trip to Moscow in the early summer of1962 was presumably related to the administration of theventure, and he may again have tried and failed to get aformal Soviet commitment to Cuba's defense. Khrushchev atthe same time reiterated his concern about American readi-ness to employ nuclear weapons, and the reported Sovietincitement of the Indonesians to use Soviet weapons andcrews against West New Guinea may have reflected a wish totest American intentions in this area before going aheadwith the build-up in Cuba. In any case, and despite hisprobable knowledge by July that American U-2s were overfly-ing Cuba, K:rushchev went ahead with it; shipments of un-identifiable material to Cuba soon increased sharply.

By the end of August, SANs were deployed in WesternCuba, about 3,000 Soviet personnel were believed to be inCuba, farmers had been evacuated from areas which became

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MRBM sites, and materials and equipment necessary to con-struct the MRBM and IRBM launch positions (but not the mis-siles).had probably arrived. Soviet broadcasts at thistime were giving misleading descriptions of Soviet ship-ments to Cuba, and the Cubans did their part by sendingout feelers foi an improvement in American-Cuban relations.Reconnaissance-at the time revealed no activity identifi-able as associated with the preparation of sites for strat-egic missiles.

While the build-up was underway in late July andAugust, and particularly in late August, after additionalU-2 flights over Cuba had apparently been tracked, Sovietspokesmen renewed charges that the United States was pre-paring to attack Cuba, and Moscow renewed its cautiousexpressions of support for Cuba in such an event. Moscowdid not seem really to believe, however, as of late August,that the U.S. was about to attack Cuba.

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IV. The Change in Expectations, September - October 1962

We take up here the management of the Soviet missilebase venture in the period of 1 September to mid-October1962, in which some of the strategic missiles were firstdeployed, in-which (we believe) Khrushchev changed his mindabout the probable American response to discovery of theventure, and'in which, as a result of this change, Ehru-shchev attempted to transmit to the President first a seri-ously misleading statement and then a flat lie about Sovietintentions.

Soviet and American Positions, Early September

On 2 September, the USSR stopped encouraging theview that its .cargoes to Cuba included no significant mili-tary equipment. (As noted, the Russians may have surmisedthat reconnaissance of late August had identified the workon the SAM sites) A joint communique at the end of theMoscow visit of Guevara and Aragones publicly acknowledgedthat the USSR was sending "armaments" and "technical speci-alists" to Cuba.* Approximating the formula of defensivepurpose, the communique asserted that Cuba had "every Jus-tification for taking measures necessary to ensure itssecurity."

Soviet propaganda, at the same time, while denyingthat the USSR was establishing a "military base" in Cuba,no longer explicitly denied the truth of charges--such asSenator eating's of 31 August--that the USSR had- put orwas about to put strategic missiles into Cuba. While as-serting that Soviet activity in Cuba was in contrast toAmerican activity in Turkey, such commentaries also drewparallels between Cuba and Turkey by pointing out that the

-*krushchev In June -ad admitted that "weapons" werebeing sent; Soviet spokesmen had then ceased to speak ofit.

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..

USSR did not threaten to invade Turkey and arguing thatthe United States should follow this same policy of "peace-ful coexistence" toward Cuba. Thus echoing a line takenprivately by a Soviet official months earlier, such com-mentaries prefigured an important element of the Sovietline of defense-in late October: that the USSR had ac-cepted AMerica "missiles in Turkey and elsewhere, so theUnited-States should accept Soviet missiles in Cuba.

The President's 4 September Statement: In a state-ment of 4 september, President Kennedy confimed that theUnited States had learned of the existence of parts of thebuild-up in Cuba--but had not learned of the plans forstrategic missiles.*

Information has reached this Govern-ment...which establishes without doubtthat the Soviets have provided the Cubangovernment with a number of anti-aircraftdefensive missiles with a slant range of25 miles...

We can also confirm the presence ofseveral Soviet-made motor torpedo boatscarrying ship-to-ship guided missileshaving a range of 15 miles.

The number of Soviet military tech-nicians now known to be in Cuba or enroute--approximately 3,500--is consistentwith assistance in setting up and learn-ing to use this equipment...

e Ss not know, by early September, .that American U-2s were regularly overflying Cuba, thePresident's 4 September statement must have made thisclear. Information of the scope and precision of that inthe President's statement would almost certainly be thoughtto come from photographs.

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There is no evidence of any organizedcombat force in Cuba from any Soviet bloccountry; of military bases provided to Rus-sia;...of the presence of offensive ground-to-ground missiles; or of other significantoffensive capability either in Cuban handsor under=Soviet direction or guidance...

'Were it to be otherwise," the President went on toshy, "the gravest issues would arise." The President statedthat the Castro regime would "not be allowed to export itsaggressive purposes by force or the threat of force," andwould "be prevented by whatever means may be necessary fromtaking action against any part of the Western Hemisphere."

The missile bases, on some of which work had justbegun, would of course establish a "significant offen4.vecapability."* Moreover, the United States soon mightdiscover the bases, and a showdown might be imminent--in.the sense that the United States would send signals ofeither acquiescence or alarm.

Another observer has put the question of whether.theentire venture could have been abandoned at that point,without letting the President discover that. his remarks.had caused the Soviet retreat. As for the physical pro-gress of the venture, probably the venture could have beensuccessfully (i.e., secretly) abandoned. The next over-flight, on 5 September (which was also apparently tracked),turned up nothing interesting, apart from evidence of asecond group of SAM sites. Although, according to subse-quent evidence, work might have been rar enough along onone of the IRBM sites by 5 September to permit the

*The Russians surely understood the President's use ofthe concept of offensive and defensive capability. The au-thoritative Soviet work, Miilitar Strate, published some -months earlier, remarked a e operaions of the Mis-sile Forces will always be of a decisive, rather than defen-sive, nature..."

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identification of the activity if that particular site hadbeen overflown on the 5 September mission, the Sovietsprobably knew (from the tracking) that it had not beenoverflown, and it is probable that such construction, ifit had begun at all, was not too far along. Moreover,the Soviets would have been able to give the area, evenif overflown, spine other appearance before the UnitedStates could contirm the nature of the activity. On theother. hand, it was probably not politically possible toabort the venture successfully (secrety)--that is, theUSSR had committed itself to the Cubans, and an attemptby Moscow to withdraw from the venture would probably berevealed and protested by the Cubans (as they did in factprotest in late October).

In any case, we doubt that the Russians would haveabandoned the venture if they could have. After all, theyexpected it to succeed, because, as they saw it, the U.S.would very probably be unwilling to go to the level ofmilitary action necessary to prevent it from succeeding.*

Nevertheless, we think that the first shift in Ehru-shchev's calculations came at about this time, at the endof August or in early September, a shift probably stirredby the agitation in the American press in late August andconfirmed by the President's statement of 4 September.Whereas the USSR, up to late August or the first few daysof September, had had high confidence that the United Stateswould acquiesce in the missile base venture, Moscow at thistime, we think, lost some of its confidence, and now sawan increased possibility that the U.S. would not acquiesce,and therefore an increased possibility of a U7B7 blockadeaimed at preventing the completion of the program. WhileKhrushchev, as previously suggested, expected to succeedeven in the face of a blockade, the blockade seemed enoughof a threat to justify some new Soviet action.

*A few days laer ( September), Ehrushchev reportedlytold Robert Frost that "modern liberals" in the UnitedStates were "too liberal to fight." On 11 September, ina private conversation, he made a similar remark.

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I

We previously noted our belief that the Russianswould have pref erred from the start to keep the build-upsecret untilthe program was complete, but had judgedeither that it was impossible to camouflage successfullyor that the effort to do so would interfere excessivelywith the work on-the bases. We argued further that theRussians recognized the possibility of U.S. reconnaissanceand therefore ohose to describe their weapons in Cuba bothin terms aim~ifat deceiving the United States and in terms

, (sopetimes the 'same terms) which, if deception failed,could serve as the form of an invitation to the U.S. toacquiesce in the build-up. This was definitely the case(we now know) in late August and early September: theSoviet ambassador at this time made a seriously mislead-ing statement about Soviet intentions, while in the mostimportant public statements of early September the USSRemployed the concept of the defensive purpose of the wea-pons in Cuba.

The Soviet ambassador's seriously misleading state-ment about Soviet intentions was made to an American of-ficial on 6 September. The ambassador insisted that allof the weapons sent to - Cuba were "defensive" in character.While this was not a flat lie (owing to the special Sovietdefinition of "defensive" action), this description wasoffered just two days after the President had publiclymade a distinction between weapons of defensive and offen-sive capabilities, and the strong implication was thatDobrynin was emp oying the President's distinction.

Ehrushchev apparently did not yet judge his situa-tion to be serious enough to justify the use of a flat lie.He now saw only an increased ossibilit of American non-acquiescence, enough to justi y e use of seriously mis-leading statements and thus prejudice his future credibility

- but not yet enough of a possibility (or probability) tojustify a flat lie and thus destro.his future credibility.When his expectation changed(Wthink), after 13- September,to the robabilit of American non-acquiescence, he raisedthe leve o Iecetion to a flat lie.

. It is necessary to explain the failure of the USSRin this period of early September to do what it might have

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done along other lines to discourage the United States fromcontinuing the U-2 flights over Cuba which might soon dis-cover the missile bases. For one thing, it failed to ex-ploit fully the. opportunity presented by two incidents in-volving U-2s,. one over the USSR and the other over ComunistChina (the first involving an American pilot, the seconda Chinese Natl4nalist), in a period of 11 days in lateAugust-and early September. On 30 August, an American U-2unintentionally violated Soviet airspace over Sakhalin;the U.S. acknowledged this. The USSR on 4 September senta harsh note recalling American "perfidy" in spring 1960(the Powers case) and President Kennedy's statement of Janu-ary 1961 that U-2 flights over the USSR would not be resumed,citing previous Soviet warnings and asserting that suchwarnings remained in force; this note, however, did not,as it might have done, speak of flights over Cuba. Simi-larly, following the 9 September incident over CommunistChina, Moscow confined itself to rebroadcasting the Chineseprotest and Chinese and other foreign commentaries holdingthe United States responsible. And, as will be seen, theUSSR in its statement of 11 September did not emphasize theU-2 incidents and did not relate them to Cuba. Further,the USSR failed to create an incident of this kind over Cuba.Some of the SAM installations were operational, or couldhave been made operational, in September and early October,but the SAMs were not used. While the failure to. use theSAMS can be explained simply in terms of prudence, the shoot-down of a single plane would not have seriously risked anAmerican attack on Cuba, and a single incident would havebeen enough to make the point.

It seems to us likely that the Russians judged thatto make an issue--either verbally or by a shootdown--of theU.S. overflights of Cuba would be counter-productive, inthat it would only confirm the American determination toconduct the flights. As witness, even later in the month,when the USSR was deciding to use a flat lie in order todiscourage U.S. reconnaissance of Cuba, and when the UNGeneral Assembly was in session, the USSR did not get theCubans to draw up a case, about U.S. violations of Cubanairspace, to present to the UNGA.

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We think that Khrushchev should have recognized,from the President's statement of 4 September, that theU.S. would continue the reconnaissance regardless of whatKhrushchev said about his intentions, and that it wastherefore stupid to prejudice his future credibility withthe kind of statement made by the Soviet ambassador on 6September. This was a piece of stupidity which was to berepeated., on.a Targer scale, in the weeks ahead.

-- - The Soviet Statement of 11 September: On 11 Septem-ber the Soviet Government issued a statement introducingthe polite euphemism of defensiver purpose, under which theUnited States was invited to acquiesce, a statement designedalso to deter the United States from imposing a naval block-ade if the U.S. did not acquiesce, and designed also todeter the United States from attacking Cuba if the U.S.were tempted to take any military action against Cuba beyonda blockade. The 11 September statement had most of theelements of the Soviet position as it developed in thecritical week of 22-28 October.

The statement took note that "bellicose-minded re-actionary elements" were calling for an attack on Cuba andfor an "attack" on Soviet ships supplying Cuba, "in oneword, calling for war." Citing the President's request tocall up 150,000 reservists in connection with developmentsin Cuba, the statement described the President's action asbeing of the type which would aggravate tension and couldcreate a situation in which the "disaster of world thermo-nuclear war can be sparked by some accident."*

The statement went on to say that "heroic littleCuba," menaced by the United States, was being givenfraternal aid by the USSR, and that the weapons includedin this aid were "exclusively for defensive purposes."This specification of defensive purpose .rather than

*soviet commentaries noted that 150,000 reservists couldbe used for an invasion of Cuba, or to free other U.S.forces for an invasion.

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capability was the model for most subsequent descriptionsof the weapons sent to Cuba. However, in reiterating inseveral formulations that the weapons were means of "de-fense," the statement made an aside which was quite mis-leading. In a curious wording, the Soviet Government,rather than speaking in its own person, "authorized TASSto state' that-

there is no need for the Soviet Union toshift its weapons for the repulsion of ag-gression, f or a retaliatory blow, to anyother country--for instance, Cuba.../I.e,,7...the Soviet Union has the capability toextend assistance from its own territoryto any peace-loving state...*

The statement went on to assert--in a fornulation which wasfar from a commitment to Cuba--that an American attack onCuba would be the "beginning of the unleashing of war."

The statement then discussed the matter of U.S. over-seas bases. Citing several countries in which U.S. wea-pons were deployed (in three instances, strategic missiles),the statement noted that American weapons in those countries(it did not specify that these included strategic missiles)were regarded by the U.S. as being there "lawfully, byright," whereas "to others the United States does not grantthis right even for defense..." But, the statement thenasserted, "Equal rights and equal opportunities must berecognized for all countries of the world." In this pas-sage, contrary to the misleading passage cited above tothe effect that the USSR had "no need" to deploy strategic

*The frst part o this. passage could be construed asfollows: the USSR has ICBMs on its o soil for retalia-tion against a blow at the USSR; weapons in Cuba are forretaliation against a blow at Cuba. However, the latterpart of the passage in effect denies this possible con-struction, in asserting that the USSR's friends can bedefended from the USSR. The passage as a whole is seri-ously misleading.

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missiles in other countries, Moscow seems again to havebeen inviting; or half-inviting, the United States torecognize what was going on in Cuba and to go along withit.

After some embroidery of this theme of equality, thestatement devoted one paragraph to the U-2 incident overthe USSR on 30 August. "In the light of the latest events,"the statement said, the USSR now "assesses differently"

'the 30 August incident. The statement went on to implythat these flights were a part of preparations for war,but it said not a word about U-2 flights in relation toCuba. We assume, as noted earlier, that Moscow judged thatit would be counter-productive to draw attention to thismatter.

Turning then to the topic of the prospects for war,and asserting that "if the aggressors unleash war"--butnotspecifying that an attack on Cuba would qualify as this--"our armed forces must be ready to strike a crushing re-taliatory blow," the statement appealed to the UnitedStates "to display common sense, not to lose self-control..."It went on, in sweet reasonableness, to recommend thatthe United States establish diplomatic and trade relationswith Cuba, and in this connection it vaguely foreshadowedKhrushchev's final fallback position of late October, thewithdrawal of the missiles in exchange for a no-invasionpledge:

If normal diplomatic and trade rela-tions were established between the UnitedStates of Aamrica and Cuba,-there would eno need for Cuba to strengthen its defenses,its armed forces...

The statement went on to declare that the USSR was "stretch-ing out the hand of friendship" to the United States.

Finally, the statement took ~a conciliatory line onthe issue of Germany and Berlin. The statement said thatMoscow would take into account the fact that it was "dif-ficult" for the U.S. to negotiate when it was preoccupiedwith the U.S. elections coming up in November, and Moscow

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thus (it implied) would not take further action on a Germanpeace treaty until after the elections. The United Stateswas thus being invited to believe that, if it would go alongwith the Cuban missile base venture (whenever discovered)the USSR would be reasonable about Germany and Berlin.(This would have been true, of course, only until the build-up in Cuba was complete and could be used as a weapon.)

. .The Soviet military press at about this time beganto say that Soviet forces were being brought to a condi-tion of "highest combat readiness." Another observer hascompiled indications of exercises, redeployments and alertmeasures in this period.* It does not appear, however,that Soviet forces were being brought to the conditionclaimed.

Several Soviet commentaries on the.ll September state-ment underlined the point that weapons were given Cubasolely for the purpose of defense. A few, however, em-ployed the misleading formulation about the absence of"need" for military bases in Cuba, and at least two impliedthat the weapons in Cuba had only defensive capabilities.

The Big Change in Expectations

There was another and larger change in Ehrushchev'sexpectations, we think, following President Eennedy'ssecond warning in his remarks of 13 September.

The President's Remarks of 13 September: That theUnited States continued to be unaware of the character andscope of the missile base venture was made evident to Mos-cow in the President's news.conference of 13 September,which he opened with a statement on Cuba. Noting the

*See the study prepared by the National Indications Cen-ter, "The Soviet Bloc Armed Forces and the Cuban Crisis:A Discussion of Readiness Measures," 15 July 1963.

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recent increase in the movement of Soviet personnel andequipment into Cuba, the President said that this develop-ment was "under our most careful surveillance." He thenstated:

But I will repeat the conclusion thatI repotted last week, that these shipmentsdo no.t.66nstitute a serious threat to any

. other -part of this hemisphere.

Thus, as of 13 September, the United States was still igno-rant: understandably so, since there was still no hardevidence. One. large-hatch ship which could have been car-rying IIBMs had docked before 13 September, but no MRBMshad yet appeared at the sites.e

President Kennedy's remarks at this 13 Septemberpress conference went on, however, to give Moscow goodreason for concern about the American response in theevent of discovery of the scope of the venture:

/Xt present 7 unilateral militaryintervention on the part of the UnitedStates cannot...be either required orjustified... But let -e make this clearonce again: If at any time the Communistbuild-up in Cuba were to endanger or tointerfere with our security in any way.../such as to7 become an offensive militaryEase of significant capacity for theSoviet Union, then this country will dowhatever must be done to protect its ownsecurity and that of its allies...

*Several Soviet cowmentaries on the President's 4 Septem-ber statement had emphasized that the President had spokenof the "defensive" capability of the weapons known to bein Cuba; several commentaries after 13 September assertedthat the President regarded the build-up as defensive incharacter, thus implyring his agreement with the formula ofdefensive- purpose.

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The President, in reply to questions, made this warningeven more explicit: "The presence of offensive militarymissile capacity," or a Cuban capability "to carry out of-fensive action against the United States" would cause theUnited States to act. In reply to another question, thePresident stated explicitly that Soviet threats of inter-vention would not- deter the United States from whateveract ion the s it nat ion might require.

In these remarks of 13 September, the Presidentdefined precisely the action which the United States wouldregard as intolerable, and he thus gave hrushchev a warn-ing of the same type which--after the warning had beendelivered several times--had deterred Ehrushchev from con-cluding a German treaty which would give the East Germanscontrol over Allied access to Berlin. It is possible thata warning put in these terms, if delivered some monthsearlier and reiterated, would have caused the USSR todecide against the missile base venture, i.e. to rest con-tent with a modest defensive system in Cuba. As notedearlier, however, Khrushchev saw an avenue of escape inthe Cuban venture which he may not have seen (at least tothe same degree) in Berlin. The promised American responseto the discovery of missiles--to "do whatever must be done"--did not change Khrushchev's impression that he still hadthis avenue of escape. It is clear from his subsequentconduct--sending in .the missiles and deploying them--thathe did not yet believe that it was dangerous to proceed.

Nevertheless, we think that at this point there wasanother and larger change in the character of Khrushchev'sexpectations. Whereas in late August and early SeptemberKhrushchev had lost his high confidence (we think) in Ameri-can acquiescence and recognized a good possibility of non-acquiescence, after 13 September (we think), Khrushchevmade yet another estimate and now judged it positively prob-able that the United States would not acquiesce. We sur-mise this in part from Khrushchev's earlier response to aspecific warning of this type (the warnings about Berlin),from his soon-expressed fear of an American blockade ofCuba and his threats to use military force to enforce theright of passage and to retaliate elsewhere as well, and,especially, from his soon-to-be-taken decision to introduce

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a flat lie about Soviet intentions in Cuba. From this point,we think, Khrushchev expected his second-best case: Ameri-can non-acquiescence, probably expressed as willingness toimpose a blockade--but unwillingness to take military actionbeyond a blockade, along with willingness to undertakenegotiations, so that the venture could still be managedto the USSR's profit.

. Following the President's 13 September press confer-'eace, Soviet commentaries noted that the President had madea number of "realistic" statements in that conference; theynoted with "satisfaction" the President's statement thatmilitary intervention would not be justified at the presenttime. They also expressed regret at the President's state-ment that such action might be justified later.

Continuation of the Build-up: During September, theUSSR moved steadily ahead with the missile base venture.Soviet dry cargo shipments to Cuba increased to 50 in Septem-ber, and through September there continued to be reportsof the offloading of large numbers of Soviet personnel, oflarge amounts of Soviet equipment, and of missiles of un-certain types. The great majority, if not all, of the MRBMscame into Cuba after 13 September.

Reconnaissance flights,which were essentially peri-pheral, were resumed on 17 September; there were missions-on 17, 28, 26, and 29 September. These were not on thepattern of August and early September, when the planes flewthe length of inland Cuba. The flights after 5 Septemberwere coastal flights which occasionally passed over por-tions of Cuba near the coast; one of them (29 September)flew over the eastern portion of the island near Guantamano.

Peripheral flights provided knowledge by late Septem-ber that additional SAM units were being deployed, thatmore MIG-21's had been delivered, that about a dozen mis-sile-carrying patrol boats had been delivered, and thatsome coastal defense missile sites were operational. There,was a report of IL-28 deliveries, and Soviet ships photo-graphed in late September turned out. (in photographs avail-able on 10 October) to be carrying crates containing un-assembled IL-28s. Later intelligence indicated that workon the MRBM sites was proceeding through September, that

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the MRBMs probably began to arrive no later than mid-Septem-ber (a few days after the.President's warning), that oneor two of the IIRBM sites may hare achieved some degree ofoperational capability during Sept ember, and that work hadbegun on three IRBM sites by mid-September. However, thereconnaissance flights through $ September had turned upnothing by that'.date, and the dfferent pattern of flightsundertaken fros'17 September had missed the areas in north-western Cuba where the missiles *ere being deployed; therewere some reports after 20 September that pointed to thepossibility that MRBMs were being brought into Cuba,* butthere was no reporting related to IRBMs.

In the last two weeks of September, Moscow took ad-ditional measures to prepare for the day of American dis-covery of the missile base venture.

From mid-September, in the light of his changed ex-pectations, Ehrushchev apparently feared an early blockadeof Cuba. He told a visitor on 17 September that the UnitedStates intended to take such action, which would be an actof war; he indicated (as Soviet spokesmen were to say openlyin the last week of October, as the quarantine was beingimposed) that Soviet ships had Instructions to proceed evenif fired on; and he said that tI}e USSR would use submarinesand rockets to enforce the right of passage. He also hintedthat U.S. intervention in Cuba Mould produce a Soviet reac-tion in Berlin, although he went on to say that he thoughtthat common sense would prevail and that there would be nowar.**

*These reports, making clear the need for good coverageof inland Cuba, set off the process which led to the col-lection of photographic evidence on 14 October.

**Ehrushchev was apparently caireful, at all stages of theventure, not to make a stron treat of retaliation in Ber-lin. He did not do so even uring the week of the crisisin late October, when the Western press was speaking ofAmerican fear of such action. It is clear that the Rus-sians themselves were more fearful than they believed theU.S. to be.

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Gromyko's opening speech to the UN General Assemblyon 21 September attacked the President's 13 Septemberstatements, on the grounds that the "gross threats" inthat statement negated the President's official dissocia-tion from the militant circles urging immediate "aggression"against Cuba. :Gromyko recalled the Soviet statement of11 September to.the effect that an attack on Cuba would bethe "beginning of the unleashing of war," and pointed toSoviet military strength. (Other Soviet spokesmen at thistime said privately that the USSR was determined to resistU.S. military action against Cuba.)

Gromyko in this speech failed to employ the formulaof the defensive purpose of the weapons in Cuba. He madethis point only indirectly, denying that the strengtheningof Cuban military forces was a threat to the United Statesor other countries, and speaking of Soviet aid as a contri-bution to Cuba's "independence." This failure to underlinethe formula, in an important speech which would be closelyread, may mean that Ehrushchev had already decided to intro-duce the flat lie, in a further effort to delay the discoveryof the missile bases. (Some subsequent commentaries didstate explicitly the formula of defensive purpose; theseperhaps lagged.)

Gromyko in this speech offered an innovation in hisdiscussion of disarmament, a proposal that an exceptionbe made, in the first .stage of general disarmament, for alimited number of strategic and other missiles which wouldremain "at the disposal of the USSR and the U.S. only."This line_ too may have been related to the missile baseventure. For one tinig, ifte U5Rwaa;Ji uw riuuuabout this latest disarmament proposal, Moscow may haveca.lculated . that the missile bases in Cuba would improvethe chances of American acceptance of such a proposal, ingiving Washington an added interest in reducing the numberof missiles targeted on the United States. Of more immediateimportance, the proposal would encourage the United Statesto believe, when the missile bases in Cuba were discovered,that the USSR would retain control over the missiles, whichwould strengthen the probability of U.S. restraint.

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There were other conflicting signals in the latterhalf of S.-ptember. Pointing awa from the build-up in Cubawas the Soviet comment on the Iranian agreement not to per-mit any foreign state to have rocket bases on its territory,a pledge which Moscow described as having great importanceon a "broader- international scale" and went so far as topresent as a modiel for Cuban-American relations. Pointingtoward th'e buid-up was a roundtable discussion in whichparalsels were again drawn between Cuba and Turkey, withthe argument offered that the USSR would not invade Turkey,therefore the United States should not invade Cuba.*

The Use of the Flat Lie

At the end of September or the beginning of October,Khrushchev apparently made an important decision, and aremarkably stupid one: the decision to introduce the flatlie--about Soviet intentions in Cuba--into the managementof the missile base venture. This was a decision whichcould not be made light-heartedly, because, when the liewas exposed, as it was sure to be sooner or later, thiswould destroy in advance the credibility of future Sovietassurances on any metz'r.

We submit that the use of the flat lie is incompre-hensible unless--as we have argued--Ehrushchev had changedhis .estimate and now thought it robable that the UnitedStates would not acquiesce in the u -up. He had to seehis situation as now serious enough to justify the use ofthe most extreme form of deception. We do not mean that

*Secretary Rush on 0 September rejected in advance anyCuba-for-Turkey proposition. Asked in a TV interview whetherthe U.S. foresaw an approach "with a deal to shut down someof our bases overseas in return for which Russia would closedown her base in Cuba," the Secretary said flatly, "Thisis not a negotiable point," aad reiterated that the U.S.would not use its commitments for barter.

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-IZ

he had lost his confidence that the United States wouldnot take any military action against Cuba beyond a block-ade. We believe that the USSR did not lose this part ofits confidence until 22 October, the date of the President'sspeech. It was pnly after 22 October that the Russiansin Cuba took any action designed to protect the missilesites against -stack; after that date, they camouflagedthe sites in--such a way as to make more difficult the taskof. the pilots of attacking bombers. We speak of Khrushchev'ssituation after 13 September as serious in the sense thatan estimate of probable American non-acquiescence meantthat U.S. discovery- the bases would probably lead to ablockade which, if imposed soon, could prevent completionof the program.

We once thought that there was another change in hissituation, apparent to him by the end of September, whichmight have returned him at that time to his expectation ofAmerican acquiescence. We thought that this might be thechange in the pattern of the U.S. reconnaissance of Cuba.On this reading, Ehrushchev might have concluded that thePresident, after stating that developments in Cuba were"under our most careful surveillance," had in fact decidedto alter the pattern of surveillance in such a way as notto keep himself well informed: in other words, just as~heUnited States had been indirectly invited to accept thebuild-up under the formula of defensive purpose, the UnitedStates might now be indirectly replying that it wouldacquiesce in the build-up by declining to discover thecharacter and scope of it.* Another possibility, similarly

sM it is not clear whether all four of the peripheralflights in September were tracked, Ehrushchev perhaps couldnot be sure that the planes had not overflown the missilebases in northwestern Cuba and that the U.S. had not dis-covered the bases. However, Secretary Rusk, in his 30 Sep-tember TV interview, reiterating that "the configurationof the military forces in Cuba is a configuration of de-fensive capability," emphasized that the U.S. was keepinga "very close watch" for the development of offensive cap-abilities. In any case, Ehrushchev's use of the flat liepresupposes an estimate of probable American ignorance.

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~. ..... _

serving to encourage Khrushchev, was that the change inthe pattern of reconnaissance was an indication that theUnited States had been made so sensitive by the two U-2incidents of late August and early September that it wasnot willing to risk a third over Cuba; if this were thecase--if the.United States were more concerned about apossible embarrassment than about discovering whether itsprincipal advetsary was about to deploy strategic missilesJust off its shores--then the risk of going ahead with theventure was low indeed, a ashington which did not wanteven a little trouble would surely not want big trouble.

That view seems to us now to have been over-stated.Ehrushchev could not have concluded, even if he had avail-able a complete tracking of .the flights, that the new pat-tern would persist; he could not have any assurance thatthe next flight would not carry the cameras over the mis-sile bases. Yet, we think, he surmised that there mightbe something in it for him, that the change in the pa ernmight have a meaning which could be exploited. He musthave calculated both that the United States was stillignorant and that the change in the pattern of the flightsmight be to some degree a retreat from a confrontation, aretreat which could be encouraged to take another step,specifically the step of halting the aerial reconnaissancealtogether. Unless the United States were still ignorant,a Soviet assertion that no strategic missiles would besent to Cuba could only be counter-productive, as it wouldpresent the character and scope of the venture in the formof an offensive and provocative flat lie. And unless hesaw a good possibility of halting the reconnaissance, hewould soon be exposed as a liar and would have offered anadditional provocation before the missile bases were anaccomplished fact.*

*A partial answer--to the problem of U.S. anger aboutbeing lied to-'was to transmit the flat lie through achannel which could later be disavowed or ignored; Ehru-shchev would not have directly delivered the lie and couldnot be known to be its sponsor. (In the event, Ehrushchevchose t~TgEore the U.S. charges.) However, Ehrushchevgreatly underrated the importance of this factor--Americananger about being lied to.

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Thus he decided, toward the end of September, touse the flat lie.* If it were successful, if the reconnais-sance were halted, the blockade would not be imposed, andhe could get into Cuba the remaining elements of his pro-gram (the IRBMs, and the warheads if not already there)and present the U.S. with the. accomplished fact. Even ifthe U.S. were-to threaten military action against the bases,he could-very-probably involve the U.S. in negotiations,in.which he w6uld be able to keep the -bases or to get amuimum price for dismantling them.

Even given this reasoning, the use of the flat liewas very stupid, another instance of the wishful thinkingthat went into the original conception of the missile baseventure, and an instance too of failure to act logicallyeven in terms of his own estimate (if he indeed made theestimate we attribute to him). If, as we think, hrushchevhad taken the President's remarks of 13 September as aclear signal that the United States would not acquiescein the deployment of strategic missiles in Cuba, then itwas unreasonable to conclude that the President could bedeterred from using all available means to discover whetherthe missiles were in fact being deployed.**

It might also be thought unreasonable, given thedecision to use the flat lie, not to camouflage the sitesin Cuba as well as possible, to the same end of delaying :U.S. discovery. (The only security measure known to usthat was taken in Cuba itself in late September and early

*It might be asked why, if his expectation had changedas of mid-September, he waited until the end of Septemberto make this change in managing the venture. We supposethat he needed some time to think, and to find the rightchannel for delivery of the lie.

**Recognition'of this could explain the continued Cubanfailure to protest the flights, at the UN. But Khrushchevdid not recognize it; we cannot' think of any credible pur-;ose, of the flat'lie, other than that of discouraging-thereconanaissance.

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October was the action taken on 25 September to confine news-men to the Havana area.) However, by this time the IRBMsites were almost certainly too far along to be camouflagedquickly, and an effort to camouflage them would presumablyinterfere with the work on them, even if the USSR had athand the materials to do any significant amount of camou-flaging. Barriag. the wild possibility that the Russiansin Cuba made ar effort to camouflage the build-up in earlyQctober and then-removed all the camouflage by mid-October,no camouflage effort was made until the week followingPresident ennedy's speech of 22 October. This latter ef-fort did not appreciably interfere with the photography,and seems to have been aimed at confusing the pilots ofany aircraft which might attack the bases.

In late September and early October, while Khrushchevwas arranging for the lie to be transmitted,* Soviet spokes-men continued to charge the United States with plans totake military action against Cuba. Soviet presidium member

osygin, speaking on 1 October, observed that "today theattention of all peace-loving mankind is rivetted on Cuba."The United States was plotting against Cuba, Kosygin said,"threatening to carry out reprisals." The bloc, he wenton, was "ready to slap the hands" of the imperialists'ifthey were to start a war over any issue, including Cuba.

In the same period, Moscow showed mixed feelingsabout the results of a conference of OAS foreign ministersin Washington in early October. Some commentaries tookthe line that the U.S. had not improved on the results of

*At just this time, the United States was making thedecision to resume the photographic coverage of inlandCuba. Before the decision was carried out, there weretwo more peripheral flights, on S and 7 October; againthey failed to discover the strategic missiles. Oddly,Dorticos in the UNGA on 8 October hinted at the truecharacter of the weapons in Cuba: T "We have sufficientmeans to defend ourselves;...weapons which we would havepreferred not to acquire and which we do not wish toemploy."

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the Punta del Este conference in January 1962; other com-mentaries observed that the United States had got a com-munique which could serve as the "political basis for themilitary gambles against Cuba planned by Washington."

The flat lie about Soviet intentions was entrustedby Khrushchevto..a junior Soviet official stationed inWashingto.*:-This official returned to Washington from the.USSR in early October, bearing a message to the effect that

hrushchev on 1 October.had summoned him for an interviewand, employing the criterion used by the President.himselfon 13 September, had told him that the President might restassured that the USSR would never send to Cuba any weapons"capable of reaching American targets." The Soviet officialtold American officials, during October, that Ehrushchevand Mikoyan (who had been present) had asked that this mes-sage be transmitted to the President.**

On 13 October, Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin commentedon the weapons in Cuba in a way which was again--like hisstatement of 6 September--definitely misleading, and evenmore so. Dobrynin, in a talk with an American official,again insisted that the weapons in Cuba were "defensive."This time, in response to a remark by the American notingPresident Eennedy's distinction between offensive and de-fensive capabilities, Dobrynin went on to say that the USSRwas not shipping offensive weapons to Cuba and well under-stood the dangers of doing so. In the context, there wasan even stronger implication than on 6 September that Dobry-nin was employing the President's distinction, and this wasseriously misleading.

*Tis account is drawn from Mr. Joseph Alsop's column of5 November 1962.

**We are uncertain as to the date of actual transmis-sion of this message to American officials. There is noreason to doubt, however, that Ehrushchev meant to havethis .message transmitted in the first eek~5r~5ctober.

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Preparations for Imminent Discovery: In possiblecontrast to Dobrynin, Gromyko may have been preparing forAmerican discovery of the missile bases,* in statementsmade ^n the same date; in a press conference, he empha-sized the USSR's. devotion to "peaceful coexistence" and tothe principle of settlement of disputes through negotia-tions.

As late as- 14 October, an important spokesman forthe Administration stated publicly the dominant Americanview that the USSR would be unlikely to "attempt to in-stall a major offensive capability in Cuba." On that date,however, flights over inland Cuba were resumed, and theseand subsequent flights were i!lluminated steadily and forlong periods by radars and were very probably tracked.Within a few days, Khrushchev almost certainly was ableto judge that the United States had discovered or was aboutto discover the missile bases.**

Immediately after the resumption of these flights,Soviet spokesmen made additional preparations for discovery.Khrushchev himself, in private conversations in the nextfew days, was much interested in the question of an Americanblockade of Cuba, which he may have thought imminent. He

*The (ubans may also have been. On 9 October, at the UN,Dorticos again vaguely foreshadowed Ehrushchev's final fall-back position, as had the USSR's 11 September statement;he said, in a formulation noted in several Soviet commen-taries, that Cuba would jettison all of its arms if theUnited States would guarantee its security.

**By this time, the USSR had apparently decided to offeras non-provocative a background as possible for the state-ments it would soon have to make about Cuba. As the Na-tional Indications Center study puts it: "There was...,as of mid-October, very little sign of any exceptionalactivity to support the constant claims in the Soviet pressthat troops were being maintained at 'highest combatreadiness.

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is said to have expressed doubts as to whether a blockadewould be effective, but to have gone on to make clear thathe feared it would indeed be effective. Following roughlythe lines of the Soviet Government statement of 11 Septemberon the prospect of an American "attack" on Cuba, and antici-pating some of the positions to be taken in the Soviet Gov-ernment statement of 23 October (the day after the Presidentannounced the..±ainent quarantine), he is said to havestated that the U.S. had no right to impose a blockade, tohave, pointed to the Soviet military strength that could bebrought to bear against those who arrogated to themselvessuch rights, to have appealed for a more "responsible" at-titude on the part of the United States, and to have heldout the prospect of a conciliatory Soviet attitude on Berlin.Ehrushchev did not admit, in either conversation, thatSoviet missiles were deployed in Cuba.

Within a few days after the 14 October resumptionof the U.S. flights over Cuba--before the Gromyko interviewof 18 October--the general design of the Soviet missilebase venture, if not all the detail of it, was clear.There were now 24 SAM sites, part of an air defense com-plez covering the entire island. Soviet armored groups(later estimated at 5,000 men) were now observed in en-campments. And of greatest importance, it was apparentthat the USSR had deployed MRB~s at several sites--some ofwhich, if nuclear warheads were present, could have beencombat-ready--and that work was underway on three IRBK sites.The IRBs themselves were never seen, and were later sur-mised to have been en route in Soviet ships turned back on23 October. Similarly, it has not been established whethernuclear warheads for the strategic missiles were present;it is possible that those for the NRBDs were, that they hadcome in as an integral part of the NRBY system; and therewas evidence of the presence of equipment associated withthe storage and transportation of warheads for both fRB1sand IRBs.

Gromyko took the initiative to get an interview withthe President on 18 October, the same day on which the

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American press carried a report of a build-up of U.S. air-power in the Southeastern United States. We cannot judgewhether the Soviet aim in this interview was deceptive, aswe do not know whether Khrushchev had the information,prior to this interview, to reach the judgment that theU.S. already knew or would very soon know the facts aboutthe missiles. Gromyko in this interview said that mili-tary aid to Cuba was meant solely for the urpose of con-tribu.ting to the-defensive capabilities of u a, and saidfurther that the training of Cubans in the handling di"defensive armaments" was "by no means offensive." Gromykoin this interview ma have thought of himself as eztend-ing a final invita on to the President to acquiesce in thebuild-up under the formula of defensive purpose. If so,Gromyko got the message: No.

The weekend press in Washington pointed to the immi-nence of some dramatic development, probably related toeither Berlin or Cuba. Moscow had reason to believe thatit would be Cuba.

Recapitulation

As this stage of the missile base venture began, thestage in which some of the strategic missiles were to bedeployed, the USSR admitted that its cargoes to Cuba in-cluded military equipment and technicians, meant for the"security" of Cuba. Soviet propaganda at the time bothasserted differences and drew parallels between the Ameri-can position in Turkey and the Soviet position in Cuba.

With the President's statement of 4 September, Ehru-shchev lost some of his confidence, we think, and nowrecognized a good possibility that the United States wouldnot acquiesce in the build-up in Cuba. At this time, inthe interest both-of delaying American discovery of the mis-sile sites and of encouraging U.S. acceptance of them when-ever discovered, Khrushchev's ambassador on 6 Septeinbermade a.seriously misleading statement (still short of aflat lie) about Soviet intentions, preparing for the pub-lic.introduction of the concept of the defensive purpose

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of the weapons--a formulation which was to serve, if decep-tion failed, as the form of the Soviet invitation to theUnited States to acquiesce.

On 11 September, the USSR issued an elaborate state-ment publicly;introducing the formula of defensive purpose,and includingg-one more misleading formulations. The state-ment was designed also to deter the United States from im-posing a blockade if the U.S. did not acquiesce in the build-up; and designed also to deter the United States from attack-ing Cuba if the U.S. were tempted to take any militaryaction against Cuba beyond a blockade; in this connection,the statement vaguely foreshadowed Ehrushchev's final fall-back position of a withdrawal for a no-invasion pledge.It also invited the United States; to believe that a con-ciliatory American line on Cuba would be met with a con-ciliatory Soviet line on Germany and Berlin. Several Sovietcommentaries on the 11 September statement underlined thepoint about defensive purpose, but some were misleading.

That the United States continued to be unaware ofthe character and scope of the missile base venture wasmade evident by President gennedy on 13 September. ThePresident warned the USSR in strong terms, however, againstdeploying strategic missiles in Cuba or establishing thereany capability to take action against the United States.This warning, we think, caused another and larger change-in ghrushchev's expectations: he now judged it probablethat the U.S. would not acquiesce. (We judge th ia rohis earlier response to a specific warning of this typeon Berlin, from his soon-expressed fear of an Americanblockade of Cuba, and his soon-to-be-taken decision to tella flat lie about his intentions in Cuba.) From this point,he expected only his second-best case: American non-acquiescence, probably expressed as willingness to imposea blockade, but unwillingness to take military action beyonda blockade, along with willingness to undertake negotiations,so that the venture could still be.managed to the USSR'sprofit.

During September, the USSR moved steadily ahead withthe build-up. Additional SAM units were deployed, work onthe 3UBM sites proceeded, MRBls began to arrive (all or

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almost all after 13 September), one or two of the IRBMsites may have achieved some degree of operational cap-ability, and work continued or began on three IRBM sites.The peripheral flights conducted in this period observednothing of this ezcept the SAMs.

In the list two weeks of September, Moscow took ad-ditional polittbal measures to prepare for the day of dis-covery.- Ehrushchev, apparently fearing an early blockadeof Cuba, threatened privately to use military force to en-force the. right of passage and to retaliate elsewhere.Gromyko pointed publicly to militant features of earlierSoviet statements on Cuba, and also made a new disarmamentproposal which, Moscow may have thought, would be attrac-tive to Washington later in the light of the Cuban basesor at least would strengthen the probability of U.S.restraint. Gromyko at this time (21 September) failed toreiterate the formula of the defensive purpose of theweapons in Cuba; perhaps Ehrushchev had already decided toemploy the flat lie in order to delay the discovery of themissile bases.

By the end of September or the beginning of October,at the latest, Khrushchev had made this decision, a deci-sion which is comprehensible only on the assumption thathe had indeed changed his estimate--as argued above--andnow judged it positively probable that the United Stateswould not acquiesce in the uild-up, and therefore probablethat U.S. discovery of the bases would lead to a blocaie.Yet he apparently saw the change in the pattern of U.S.reconnaissance of Cuba as indicating a possible retreatfrom a confrontation, a possible willingness to halt recon-naissance if assured--as the flat lie was to promise--thatthe USSR would not send weapons to Cuba capable of reach-ing targets in the United States. This seems to have beenthe same kind of wishful thinking that went into the originalconception of the missile base venture, and to have beenan instance too of failure to. act logically even in termsof his own estimate.

.While the date of transmission of the flat lie isuncertain, Ehrushchev meant it to be delivered in the firstweek of October. On 13 October, the Soviet ambassador again

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commented on the weapons in Cuba in terms which were seri-ously misleading. On the other hand, Gromyko and the Cubansmay have been preparing for American discovery of the mis-sile bases.

The flights over inland Cuba were resumed on 14October, and within a few days Khrushchev was al'nost cer-tainly able torjudge that the U.S. had discovered or wasabout to discover the missile bases. In two conversationsin mid-October, Ehrushchev discussed the possibility of anAmerican blockade and appealed for a "responsible" attitude.

Within a few days, the general design of the .build-up was clear. There were now 24 SAM sites, Soviet armoredgroups were in encampments, and, of greatest importance,MRBMs had been deployed at several sites and work was un-derway on three IRBM sites. In talking with the Presidenton 18 October, Gromyko may or may not have been attemptingto deceive the President, depending on how much Khrushchevknew at that time about the resumed flights over inlandCuba. It seems possible that Gromyko thought of himselfas extending a final invitation to the United States toacquiesce; if so, he got the message: No.

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-.F

V. The Week of the Crisis, 22-28 October

This final portion of the paper traces developmentsin the week of the crisis, 22-28 October 1962, a week de-scribed by some; observers as the worst week for the USSRsince the Nazi invasion of June 1941.

The President's Speech and the First Response

It was announced at noon on 22 October that Presi-dent Kennedy would make an important speech at seven thatevening. Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin was summoned from NewYork and was given by Secretary Rusk, an hour before thePresident's speech, the text of the speech.

The 22 October Speech: The President in his 22October speech began with a summary of the facts. Therewas "unmistakable evidence," he said, of the presence of"a series of offensive missile sites" in Cuba. "Several"of them were designed for URBMs. Additional sites, notyet completed, seemed designed for IRBEs. Further, jetbombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons were being un-crated and assembled.

This "urgent transformation" of Cuba into an import-ant strategic base, the President continued, was in defianceof his own "public warnings" to the USSR on 4 September and13 September. Further, the build-up contradicted the "re-peated assurances of Soviet spokesmen, both publicly andprivately delivered, that the arms build-up in Cuba x uldretain its original defensive character, and that the SovietUnion had no need or desire to station strategic missileson the territory of any other nation." The President citedthe Soviet Government statement of 11 September and Gromyko'sstatements of 18 October in this connection.

The President went on to describe the swift andsecret.build-up in Cuba as a "deliberately provocativeand unjustified change in the status quo which cannot beaccepted by this country if our courage and commitmentsare ever to be trusted again, by either friend or foe."

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The President was in effect reminding Khrushchev of hiswarnings in the Vienna talks and subsequently, the essen-tial point of 'hich had been that the United States wouldstrongly resist efforts to change the balance of power.

The President went on to say that "we will not pre-maturely or unnecessarily risk the costs of world-widenuclear -war"-yin which, as he had said in February 1962,,there could not be a meaningful victory--"but neither willwe shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced."The President specified that he bad ordered a "strictquarantine on all offensive military equipment under ship-ment to Cuba"*; that he had ordered an increased closesurveillance of Cuba, that in the event d a continuedbuild-up of offensive systems "further action will bejustified," and that in this connection he had orderedthe armed forces to prepare for "any" eventuality; thatany missile launched from Cuba against any nation in theWestern Hemisphere would be regarded. as an attack by theUSSR on the United States and as such would provoke a "fullretaliatory response" upon the USSR; that the Guantanamobase had been reinforced, and that additional militaryunits were standing by; that the United States was callingfor an immediate meeting of the consultative organ of theOAS; and that the U.S. was also calling for an emergencymeeting of the UN Security Council and would there intro-duce a resolution calling for the dismantling and with-drawal of "all offensive weapons" under UN supervision asa condition for lifting the quarantine. The President fol-lowed these points by calling upon Khrushchev personallyto withdraw the missiles, to refrain from any action whichwould make the crisis worse, and to take part in a "searchfor peaceful and permanent solutions."

*On the next day, the QAS gave its approval, 19-0 (withone abstention), to an American resolution authorizing theuse of force to enforce a quarantine, and President Eennedysigned the order for the naval quarantine to go into effect.

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The President went on to state that the "latestSoviet threat" (the missile bases)--"or any other threatwhich is made either independently or in response to ouractions this week--must and will be met with determination."Further, "any hostile move anywhere in the world againstthe safety and freedom of peoples to whom we are committed--including in'articular the brave people of West Berlin--will be met bys'whatever action is needed." The Presidentgoncluded by describing the effort ahead as "difficult anddangerous," one in which no one could know "what costs orcasualties will be incurred."*

. The Soviet Statement of 23 October: In the SovietGovernment statement of 23 October, Moscow took the posi-tion which, we have argued, it had planned from the startto adopt at the time of American discovery of the scopeof the missile base venture. The statement sought to putthe United States on the defensive, in a poor position totake further military action, so that the USSR could gaintime for the purpose of involving the United States innegotiations aimed at gaining yet more time or some largeconcession.

*The Soviet press In May 1963 stated that Oleg Penkovsky,the senior Soviet official who was in the service of Britishand American intelligence in the years 1960-62, was arrestedon the very day, 22 October 1962, of the President's speech.If Penkovsky was indeed arrested on or before this date,the case gave Khrushchev another factor to consider in de-termining his response to the President's speech. Ehrushchevalready knew, or had to consider the strong possibility,that Penkovsky had given the West information which wouldweaken the Soviet position in a confrontation with the West,in the sense of improving Western knowledge of Soviet cap-abilities and of targets in the USSR. The Penkovsky casepresumably strengthened Khrushchev's conclusion, reachedlong before, that he would have to back down if the UnitedStates were willing to fight.

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--

The Soviet statement took note that the United Stateshad "in effect" established a "naval blockade" of Cuba,described as a "step along the road of unleashig a thermo-nuclear world war."

Presenting the matter as a dispute between the UnitedStates and Cub the statement protested American interfer-ence in Cubs ."internal affairs," and it gave a "seriouswarning" to the United States. It reiterated the Sovietposition that "only madmen" would base their policy on"'positions of strength,"' in the light of the fact (whichMoscow knew not to be a fact) that Soviet military strengthwas as great as American strength.

Turning to the heart of the matter, without eitheradmitting or explicitly denying that Soviet strategic mis-siles were deployed in Cuba, the statement offered againthe Soviet contention that the Soviet weapons were for thedefense of Cuba. This illustrated the "hypocrisy" of Presi-dent ennedy's warning of an American "retaliatory blow."(The statement failed to mention that the President hadspecified that such a blow would tall upon the USSR.)

The statement at this point seemed to imply that theweapons in Cuba were controlled by Soviet forces and thatthe United States therefore need not worry about their use."Nuclear weapons which have been created by the Sovietpeople and are in the hands of the people will never beused for the purposes of aggression." The statement thenpromised a "very powerful retalittory blow" against aggres-s ion.

The statement returned to the theme that the UnitedStates was bullying Cuba, that little Cuba could notthreaten the United lEires, that Washington had rejectedCuban overtures for negotiations, and that Soviet aid wasimed entirely at strengthening the defenses of Cuba. Thestatement, at this point blurring the question of controlover the strategic weapons, then asserted that the Ameri-can demand for the removal of weapons which "Cuba needsfor self-defense" was a demand which "naturally no statewhich values its independence can meet."

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The statement then took up, as had the 11 Septemberstatement, the Soviet grievance about U.S. overseas basesand the threat of Polaris missiles. In this light, thestatement said, the American profession of seeking peacewas obviously false.

Recapitulating, the statement asserted .that theUnited States "arrogates the right to demand that statesreport to it on how they organize their defense and whatthey carry in their ships...," and that the Soviet govern-ment "resolutely rejects such claims." The "arrogant"American actions could lead to "disastrous consequencesto all mankind..."

Adding that Moscow had instructed its UN represent a-tives to introduce in the Security Council the questionof "the violation of the UN charter and the threat to peaceon the part of the United States," the statement concludedwith a call for all governments to join in protest and witha promise that the USSR would try to keep the peace whiletaking measures to keep itself "from being taken unawares...."

In sum, the USSR, in its first public response tothe President's 22 October speech, dealt with the variouselements of the speech as follows: (a) as for the questionof a dispute between the United States and the USSR, thestatement presented the dispute as being really betweenthe U.S. and little Cuba; (b) as for the question of thedeployment of strategic issiles in Cuba, the statementneither admitted nor explicitly denied the presence of suchweapons, and adhered to the formula of defensive purpose;(c) as for the U.S. position that ventures of thiswere unacceptable, the statement denied any American rightto know what other countries were doing in this respect;(d) as for the American willingness to risk war, the Sovietstatement made no comparable assertion, but warned theUnited States against interfering in Cuba's affairs; (e)as for the quarantine order, the statement described itas a step toward war; (f) as for the U.S. position that afurther build-up in Cuba would justify further action, thestatement said that "arrogant" American actions could havedangerous consequences; (g) as for the threat of full retal-iation on the USSR for the firing of any missile from Cuba,

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the statement took no note of the threat to the USSR, blurredthe question of Soviet control of the missiles and warnedthe United States that Soviet military strength was as greatas American strength; (h) as for the American resolutionin the UN, and the personal appeal to Khrushchev, both call-ing for the withdrawal of the offensive weapons, the state-ment noted that the USSR would introduce a resolution onthe American threat to peace and that the demand for theremoval of weapons needed by Cuba could not be met by Cuba,an'd "t the same time pointed to American overseas bases;and (i) as for the appeal not to take action exacerbatingthe crisis, and the warning that hostile moves elsewherewould be met vigorously, the statement observed that theUSSR would try to keep the peace while looking to its mili-tary preparedness.

Other Soviet Responses: Soviet spokesmen for someweeks had been predicting (and warning against) the Ameri-can imposition of a blockade of Cuba. hrushchev appar-ently recognized at once that the President in his 22October speech was serious about imposing the quarantine.On the same morning that Moscow issued the official state-ment (discussed above). implying that its ships would runthe blockade, and while its officials were declaring pub-licly and privately that the vessels would certainly runthe blockade, the USSR sent out orders to the contrary.Around noon on 23 October (early evening, Moscow time),several of the Soviet vessels en route to Cuba (those sus-pected of carrying military equipment) changed their courses,in response to urgent messages from Moscow. (The coursechanges did not become generally known until the next day.)

This Soviet decision came several hours before theOAS' 19-0 vote to support the quarantine and to effect thedismantling of the missile bases. The immediate and over-whelming approval of the American course by the Latin Ameri-can governments, and by the NATO powers as well, was prob-ably a most unpleasant surprise for the Russians, who mayhave been counting on a serious split in both Latin Ameri-ca and Western Europe. But the point here is that theRussians were not willing to wait to find out about that;once convinced that the United States was serious, theyrefused to gamble on the possibility that American determina-tion would be affected by splits in the Western camp.

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Moscow had probably not concluded, this early in theweek, that the United States would be willing soon to gobeyond the blockade to whatever action was necessary to getthe strategic missilesout of Cuba. But the USSR from thestart took care not to give the United States any reasonto employ against the USSR itself the SAC forces which--asthe USSR certainly- knew by 23 October, when this was pub-licly stated byC:a SAC spokesmen--had been put on a highlevel of- alert by-the time of the President's speech. The23 October statement did not threaten nuclear war againstthe "blockade," did not miai a firm commitment to Cuba'sdefense, and did emphasize the USSR's devotion to peace.*

- It was not, of course, clear as early as 23 Octoberthat the USSR would take no serious risks. This was notclear until 28 October, and even then there was room fordoubt as to whether the USSR would keep its promise. Butthe moderate nature of the 23 October statement was afavorable early indicator, and the order to the ships tochange their courses was even more so.

The Cuban Response: The indicators from Cuba itselfwas less favorable, but also less important.. The armedforces had been put on the "highest degree of alert" (accord-ing to Castro later) an hour before President Kennedy'sspeech of 22 October, and the reim'e apparently regardeditself as mobilized for general war on the same day. On :

*Moscow announced on 23 October that Defense MinisterMalinovsky had reported on measures to increase the readi-ness of Soviet forces. As previously noted, in mid-OctoberSoviet forces had not appeared to be, as asserted by Moscowin a condition of "highest combat readiness." The stateof readiness may have been raised after 22 October, andsome forces may actually have been brought to their high-est condition of readiness (as claimed), but there islittle information on the state of readiness of the mostimportant Soviet forces, the strategic rocket (missile)forces, the submarine missile forces, and the long-rangeair torces.

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L! ___________ ___ ____

23 October, Castro spoke on the crisis. He reviewed Ameri-can offenses against Cuba and Latin America, read passagesfrom President Kennedy's speech, and jeered at the Presi-dent's warnings. He said that Cuba had taken measures to"repel" an American attack, and in the same passage he re-jected absolgtely "any attempt at inspection" of Cuba,thus answering the President and rejecting in advance theproposal -that--hrushchev was soon to make. He then re-jected any policy which calls for disarming us in theface of the aggressors," and described this policy--apolicy which hrushchev was soon to carry out--as "stupid..,ridiculous.., idiocy...": here and elsewhere Castro, likethe Russians at this time, blurred the question of whetherSoviets or Cubans had control of the strategic missiles.He also professed confidence in Cuba's ability to "resista complete blockade."*

Near the end of his interview, Castro described theSoviet statement of 23 October (broadcast earlier in theday) as a "real lesson to imperialism: firm, calm, fullof arguments..." As he went on to say, however, the Sovietposition was that of "defenders of peace"--a much lessmilitant position than his own.

In the speech of the Cuban delegate in the UN SecurityCouncil debate of 23 October, there was another referenceto Dorticos' 9 October statement, which in turn had reflectedthe 11 September Soviet statement, that there would be noneed for weapons in Cuba if the United States were to pledgeitself not to attack Cuba. In the next three days, therewere to be some less vague hints to this effect by Cubanofficials.

ewe do not know whether this latter phrase meant thathe expected the USSR to resist for Cuba, or that he alreadyknew that the USSR would not resiTat the quarantine.

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Soviet Maneuvers and Ehrushchev's Anxiety

In the three days following the issuance of the Sovietgovernment public statement and Moscow's unpublicized orderto the ships to change course--that is, on 24, 25 and 26October--Ehrushcqv. worked busily along several lines. Hemade additional-statements designed to placate the UnitedStates sufficiently to deter further military action; hetook 'additional steps to avoid a confrontation of Sovietand American ships in the Caribbean; he publicly denied,while again privately admitting, the deployment of strategicmissiles in Cuba, and he continued the work on the basesthere; he made efforts to involve the United States innegotiations; he conducted probes on a particular plan fora negotiated settlement, a mutual dismantling of the Sovietbases in Cuba and the American bases in Turkey; and hemade preparations for a fast backdown if necessary, a back-down in the form of a proposal for a withdrawal of offen-sive weapons from Cuba in exchange for a no-invasion pledgefrom the United States. On or about the evening of 26October Moscow time, Khrushchev was impelled to abandon-- temporarily--all of his failback positions except thelast one.

The Need to Prevent War: There were a few militantremarks in Soviet publications and radio broadcasts in this:period, mostly on 24 October. For example, aIvestiya on24 October: "Little Cuba has powerful friends wo7Iaveeverything necessary...to put the unbridled imperialistsinto their place and to make them lose taste for pokingtheir noses into the internal affairs of a country " OrMalinovsky, quoted in Red Star the next day: "At thefirst signal, the entirFmX ijE of our armed forces mustbe immediately brought to bear against the enemy, hismilitary-strategic, economic, and political centers, andhis main groupings of troops." Or a 24 October broadcastto various types of people in various parts of America:"the flames of war may sweep in from the Caribbean and en-gulf your home too."

Ehrushchev set the dominant line, however, in his24 October reply to Bertrand Russell. The note said at one

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point that a war would at once become "thermonuclear andworld war," and at another point that "so long as rocketnuclear weapons are not put into action, there is still anopportunity to avert war." The latter formulation seemsto have been a simple tautology, rather than a formulationmeant to leave open the possibility of military action--withconventional weapons--which need not be regarded as a war;there was no andication at any time that the USSR was temptedto try to defead Cuba with conventional weapons. The heartof the statement, in any case, was Ehrushchev's assurancethat the Soviet government "will not make any reckless deci-sions, will not permit itself to be provoked," and "willdo everything in our power to prevent war from breakingout."* In a private interview (at his initiative) with anAmerican industrialist the same day, Ehrushchev seemed tobe bluffing at one point, saying that he would not firethe Cuban-based missiles exce t in defense of Cuba or theUSSR, but at another poin 'e said that he would not be thefirst to fire nuclear weapons;** and in any case he empha-sized the dreadful consequences for everyone of a war overCuba. Ehrushchev reiterated his devotion to peace in hisreply of 25 or 26 October to U Thant's second appeal, andneither Ehrushchev nor any other Soviet spokesman in thisperiod threatened to take action in places (e.g. Berlin)outside the Caribbean.

*This line was exemplified the next afternoon by a TASEcorrespondent in Washington. According to an eyewitnessaccount, the TASS man visited the Press Club on the after-noon of 24 October and was drawn into a quarrel about Cubawith an American newsman; when the American threatens d tohit the Russian with a bottle, the Russian ran out of theClub, crying that he would not be provoked.

**Again Khrushchev's formulations were confusing: if thefirst formulation were to govern, he would fire the missilesin defense of Cuba against an attack even by conventionalweapons; if the second were to govern, he would not attemptseriously to defend Cuba against an attack by conventionalweapons.

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The "Piratical" Quarantine: The U.S. quarantine ofCuba went into ef ect at 1000 on 24 October. In the 24October reply to Russell, Khrushchev apparently meant toinclude the quarantine in the concept of "pfratic actions"planned by the United States. The USSR could not 'agree"with such actions, Ehrushchev said, and, if such actionswere carried out,.the USSR would have to "resort to meansof defense agadnst the aggressors." Similarly, and moresharply; in the private interview (cited above) of thesame 'date, Ehrushchev described the quarantine as "piracy,"and said that, while the United States right stop Sovietships outside Cuba one or two or three tines, sooner orlater he could give the order to sink an American block-ader. It will be observed that hrushchev took this toughline after he had ordered some of the ships en route toCuba to turn around. During the afternoon and evening of24 October it became publicly known that most of those shipsen route to Cuba had altered course and were returning toSoviet ports, and it was generally assumed that those whichcontinued toward Cuba were carrying inoffensive cargoes.

On 25 October, Ehrushchev stated his agreement witha proposal from U Thant--ho apparently either did notrecognize or did not care that the USSR had lied about thequestion of its shipments to Cuba--that the USSR suspendweapons shipments to Cuba and the United States suspendthe quarantine, both for two or three weeks. PresidentKennedy in his reply to U Thant did not agree to lift thequarantine, and reiterated that the problem was to securethe removal of the offensive weapons. On 26 October, UThant made public the replies of Ehrushchev and the Presi-dent to a new appeal: Khrushchev agreed to keep Sovietvessels out of the area of interception, on a "purely tem-porary basis, and the President agreed that if the shipsdid indeed stay out of the area, U.S. vessles would try toavoid a confrontation.

The Missile Bases: Throughout this period of 24-26October, 5ov et spokesmen continued publicly to impugn theveracity of the President's "allegations" about the deploy-ment of strategic issiles in Cuba, usually without clearlyand explicitly denying that such weapons were present. For

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"_

example, Zorin at the .UN asserted that "no such factsexist," that the photographs were "fabrications"; Moscowradio also spoke of "faked photographs," of a "big lie"to justify aggression; the Soviet ambassador in exico pub-licly denied that, there was an "arsenal of Soviet arms"in Cuba; a Soviet commentator spoke of the "allegations,false from beginning to end, about Soviet offensive rocketsin Cuba"j and--many broadcasts referred to the lack of anyneed for missile sites abroad. In two commentaries forYordign audiences, Moscow Radio went so far as to say that'there are no...long-range rockets" in Cuba.*

The Soviet public position on the missile bases wasrapidly breaking down under scrutiny at the UN, however,and in his private remarks Khrushchev, while willing tolet Zorin go on making a fool of himself, did not attemptto deny the presence of the missiles. In the private in-terview of 24 October (cited above), Khrushchev admittedthat the missiles were there, said that the United Stateswould have to learn to live with them, said further thatthere were nuclear warheads in Cuba for the missiles, andassured his American listener that the missiles were entirelyunder Soviet control and that the order to fire them mustcome from him, while also saying (as noted above) that hewould fire them in defense of Cuba or the USSR but wouldnot be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Work on the missile sites throughout this period of24-26 October moved ahead rapidly, with an effort made tocamouflage some of the sites (against attacking aircraft,rather than reconnaissance, apparentlyT by moving equipment

*This formulation is not quite a flat lie, such as theearlier flat lie that no weapons capable of reaching theU.S. would be sent to Cuba. Moscow could contend. that by"long-range rockets" it meant ICBbs. However, in the Sovietusage the term "long-range rockets" had generally if notinvariably been used for IRBNs and fRBNs, while ICBs werecalled "super long-range rockets." Thus the formulationin the Moscow broadcasts was very close to a flat lie.

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under trees or covering it with canvas. Throughout thisperiod, statements by American leaders made clear that theUnited States had no doubt at all as to the facts aboutthe missile bases and that the presence of these bases wasthe issue.

Efforts to .Get Negotiations: On 24 October, therewere bulletins-from Moscow to the effect that Ehrushchevhsd proposed a-summit meeting. This turned out to be Khru-shchev's statement, in his 24 October reply to Russell,that the 'question of war and peace is so vital that weshould consider usefulra top-level meeting in order todiscuss all the problems which have arisen..." In his

private interview (cited twice above) of the same day,Khrushchev spoke of another meeting with President Kennedyas both desirable and necessary; he said that such a meet-ing could take place in Moscow or Washington or at sea.

On the evening of 24 October, U Thant in the UNSecurity Council made a statement to the effect that thecurrent situation was so grave that it was necessary tohold "urgent negotiations between the parties directlyinvolved." He stated further that he had sent messagesto the USSR and the United States which, among otherthings, proposed to allow time "to enable the parties con-cerned to get together with a view to resolving the presentcrisis peacefully..." This was, of course, just whatKhrushchev wanted--to gain time, and to get negotiationsto gain either more time or a large concession. Be repliedimmediately that he "agreed" with U Thant's proposal (pre-sumably, with all parts of the proposal), and, specifically,that he too regarded the situation as "calling for immedi-ate intervention by the United Nations." The emphasis inPresident Kennedy's reply (previously cited in the discus-sion of the quarantine) was very different. While inform-ing U Thant that Ambassador Stevenson would take up withhim the matter of "preliminary talks" to discuss measuresto remove the existing threat, the President stated: "Aswe made clear in the Security Council, the existing threatwas created by the secret introduction of offensive weaponsinto Cuba, and the answer lies in the removal of such weapons."

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In this same period, a few Soviet commentariesreiterated Khrushchev's view that the question of war andpeace was of such importance as to warrant a "summit"meeting. At least one broadcast spoke of there being an"honorable and reasonable alternative to the presentpolicy: it is talks."

On 25.ctober, two Soviet officials in Vienna ap-proached a friend of the Austrian Foreign Minister with-the suggestion that the latter offer Vienna as a site foran immediate summit meeting. The same day, a Soviet of-ficial in London made a similar proposal, with London tobe the site (this was perhaps not made explicit until thefollowing day). On the same day, I Thant sent a secondmessage to the President, informing him that he (U Thant)had sent a second message to Khrushchev stating his con-cern lest a confrontation of ships "destroy any possibilityof the discussions that I have suggested as a prelude tonegotiations on a peaceful settlement," and asking (asnoted above) that a confrontation be avoided. Ehrushchev'sreply, released on 26 October, agreed that a confrontationwould certainly "seriously complicate the endeavors toinitiate contacts in order to put an end, on the basis ofnegotiation, to the crisis situation..." Khrushchev con-cluded this reply with a statement professing the USSR'sconsistent favor for settling disputes "not through war butthrough negotiations." President Eennedy in his reply tothis second message again kept the focus on the missilesites, reminding U Thant that work continued on the sitesand that the need was to "proceed urgently" to effectthe withdrawal of the offensive weapons.

It seems clear that Khrushchev, throughout thisperiod, was making a serious effort to tie up the UnitedStates in negotiations. President ennedy's replies toU Thant's two appeals should have made clear to Khrushchev,and other indicators did make clear to Ehrushchev, thatthe President would niiTpermit himself to be tied up forlong in negotiations.

The Cuba-For-Turkey Proposition: At the same timethat -hrushchev was seeking negotiations in general, Moscow

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was trying out a second fallback position,* one aimed, likenegotiations in general, at gaining time, but which offereda specific proposition, namely the withdrawal of Sovietstrategic missiles from Cuba in exchange for the withdrawalof American missiles from Turkey. A round-table discussionbroadcast by the domestic service on 23 October had includedthe observation-'attributed to the Manchester Guardian--thatthe USSR would 'be within its rights to counter'iUes~~. block-ade of Cuba with- a-blockade of Western bases, "for example,of Turkey." On 24 October, Ehrushchev in a private inter-view (the one cited three times above) reportedly defendedthe Soviet base in Cuba in terms of American bases in Turkeyand elsewhere, and asked specifically about the rationaleof the base in Turkey. And on 25 October, the Soviet ambas-sador in Ankara had a two-hour discussion with the Turkishforeign minister in which he equated the bases in Cuba andTurkey and sought assurances that the bases in Turkey wouldnot be used. The ambassador in this talk apparently stoppedjust short of seeking Turkish acquiescence in the proposi-tion--the mutual dismantling of bases in Cuba and Turkey--which Khrushchev was to put forward in his 27 October letter.**

*Some observers have contended that this was not a fall-back position but the true aim of the entire venture. This'contention strikes us as very weak. As others have noted,if this had been the original Soviet aim, a much smallerSoviet program in Cuba would. have been sufficient to sup-port the base-trading proposal.

**Moscow may have genuinely regarded a withdrawal of U.S.- missiles from Turkey as a concession acceptable to the

United States: the U.S. had been discussing with some ofits allies for several months the possibility of replacingthe missiles in Turkey and elsewhere with a defensive sys-tem based mainly on Polaris submarines; and the New YorkTimes had reported on 24 October that "some /Vashington7sources said that...it was conceivable that The United Statesmight be willing to dismantle one of the obsolescent Ameri-can bases near Soviet territory."

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Preparations for a Fast Backdown: While continuingthe work on the missile sites and trying to get negotia-tions either to gain time or to get some large concession,and concurrently testing the specific fallback proposal ofa Cuba-for-Turkey. trade, Moscow in this 24-26 October periodtried out another and much less favorable fallback position,amounting to ay=virtual surrender, to which the USSR couldretreat swift-y if the indicators became ominous.

Beginning on 24 October, Soviet officials abroad be-gan putting out feelers to judge whether the United Statesmight agree to renounce an invasion of Cuba in return forthe withdrawal of Soviet offensive weapons. Cuban officialssupported such Soviet overtures. The Cubans were suggest-ing privately that Havana would be receptive to UN media-tion, with the implication that Cuba would consent to thewithdrawal of the strategic missiles in exchange for anAmerican guarantee not to attack Cuba and an American lift-ing of the quarantine.*

Just as Khrushchev had ordered the ships en routeto Cuba to change course without waiting to see whetherthe OAS would be badly split on the question of actionagainst Cuba, so Khrushchev again did not wait for authori-tative responses to these approaches on the proposition ofa withdrawal for a no-invasion pledge. Just as he hadmoved quickly when persuaded that the United States wasserious about the blockade, he again moved quickly becausehe was, if not convinced, at least very much afraid, thatthe United States would soon carry out a bombing or inva-sion of Cuba.

*JLst as some observers contend that Ehrushchev's origi-nal aim in the missile base venture was to get a Cuba-for-Turkey trade, some even contend that the aim was a no-in-vasion pledge. This contention seems to us even weaker thathe other. As others have noted, it is impossible tobelieve that the USSR would have made such a political andeconomic investment in Cuba simply to gain an enemy's ro-mise. Ehrushchev of course has to present a no-invasion

eiege as having been his aim all along, as he has nothingelse to show for the venture.

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-

The Implied Retreat, 26 October: In his 12 Decemberreport to the Supreme Soviet, Khrushchev explained his rapidretreat to his final fallback position*--a pledge of with-drawal of the offensive weapons in exchange for a no-inva-sion pledge--in terms of a "signal of utmost alarm." Khru-shchev put it this way:

" American militarist forces pushed .events so-as to carry out an attack onCuba. On the morning of 27 October wereceived information from our Cuban com-rades and other sources which directlystated that this attack would be carriedout within the next two or three days.We regarded the telegrams received as asignal of utmost alarm, and this alarmwas justified. Immediate actions wererequired in order to prevent an attackagainst Cuba and preserve peace.

A message was sent to the U.S.President which suggested mutually ac-ceptable solutions...We stated that ifthe United States pledged not to invadeCuba and also to restrain their alliesfrom aggression against Cuba, then theSoviet Union would'be ready to remove

*We speak or this position as "final" in the sense thatit was the last position he was forced to occupy. We sur-mise that he had yet another position in reserve, namely,that of withdrawing the missiles even without a no-invasionpledge if forced to do so; as previously suggested, webelieve that Khrushchev would not regard a no-invasionpledge as having' idch value--dot enough, we thini, tojustify a delay in withdrawing until he got it, a delaywhich might well have resulted in the destruction of theisland .the pledge was to cover. In any case, the USSRdid not comply with the terms of verification which wouldmake the pledge operable.

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from Cuba all of the weapons which theUnited States described as oftens iveweapons...

Khrushchev's account is confusing, however, as tothe dates, and; seems deliberately obfuscatory, in the in-terest of givig..no further publicity to erratic featuresof his behavior in the period of 26-28 October. Ehrushchevstates in the 32 December account that the critical in-formation was received on the morning of 27 October Moscowtime. But the action which he says he took in responsewas taken no later than the afternoon of 26 October Moscowtime--the writing of the letter which contained the impli-cit proposal of a withdrawal for a no-invasion pledge.

Ehrushchev's account speaks of the "signal" not asa single message but as the sum of several messages, addedup by him on 27 October:

Events developed at a quick pace.The U.S. command brought into full mili-tary preparedness all its armed forces,including the troops present in Europe,as well as its Sixth Fleet in the editer-ranean and its Seventh Fleet based in theTaiwan area. Several paratroop, infantry,tank, and armored divisions--numberingabout 100,000 servicemen--were detailedfor an attack on Cuba alone. Apart fromthis, 183 ships with 83,000 sailors abroadwere moved toward the shores of Cuba. Thelanding on Cuba was to be covered by severalthousand military aircraft. About 20 per-cent of all aircraft of the Strategic AirCommand were in the air round the clock,

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carrying atomic and hydrogen bombs...*Reservists were called up.**

The forces of America's NATO alliesin Europe., too, were brought up to fullbattle preparedness. A joint command ofthe United States and the Latin Americancountr$eswivs created...

'' - Some of the details of the "full military prepared-ness" cited by Khrushchev seem to have been drawn from aDepartment of Defeznse news release of 29 November 1962(two weeks prior td this speech). However, whatever thefigures available to Ehrushchev at the time, it was ap-parent from the massing of forces and from public state-ments that the United States was preparing to move to ahigher level of military action against Cuba in the nearfuture. While the possibilities included an eztensionof the quarantine (to cut off oil, or all shipments intoCuba), it was clearly an air strike aginst the bases ora full-scale invasion of Cuba which Ehrushchev.feared.

Why did these indicators, as of 26 October, pointto such early action that Khrushchev suggested his finalfallback position on that day? We cannot be sure, but we

*SAC had been o dered into Defense Condition Three on22 October, with increased airborne alert and dispersal;and SAC had gone izsto Defense Condition Two, which includedthe cancelling of leaves, on 24 October: Ehrushchev didnot specify in his 12 December speech, but. may have knownin late October, as revealed in the 29 November release,that SAC had "upgraded individual missile alerts to amazimum." As previously noted, the state of readiness ofSoviet forces aftet 22 October is in question. However,almost all observets agree that the USSR wished to avoida provocative appearance at this time.

**The (air) reservists were not called up until 27October.

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think that these indicators were read in the light of franticmessages from the Cubans just prior to 26 October. Khru-shchev himself (see above) attributes the "signal of utmostalarm" to his "Cuban comrades" among others; the Cubansare the only sources he identifies. While we have not seenany Cuban mess.ages of this kind and of this time, there isother evidence .that the Cubans had concluded by 26 Octoberthat an attack-~was indeed imminent. For example, two ambas-sadors in Hav-ana reported in messages that Dorticos had'said on 26 October that Havana expected an attack very soon,possibly or even probably on the night of 26 October. IfDorticos was saying this to non-bloc diplomats on 26 October,the Cubans almost certainly had informed Moscow of theirfears no later than the previous night, which would havebeen the morning of 26 October, Moscow time, some hoursbefore the composition of Khrushchev's 26 October letter.

We cannot judge the identity of the unspecified"other sources" cited by Khrushchev. There were severaldevelopments on 26 October which could have reinforced thepresumed Cuban messages of alarm and could have contributedto his own state of alarm reflected in the 26 October letterif they had been known to Khrushchev before the time ofcomposition of that letter, but they were not. The 26October developments to be cited later--rumors of an im-minent invasion of Cuba available to Moscow through thePress Club in Washington and possibly through the British,and public statements by American and other officials sug-gesting the possibility of early action;-came later in theday than the time that hrushchev wrote his letter, andthus were part of the large body of material which laterreturned Ehrushchev to his 26 October position but whichdid not contribute to his implicit retreat of 26 October.

In any case, hrushchev on 26 October, adding up thevarious military and political indicators available throughthe night of 25-26 October Washington time, wrote a letterwhich seems to us to have been designed to head of!f anyattack on Cuba that may have been planned for the night of26 October or the morning of 27 October.

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The Long Weekend

Ehrushchev's 26 October letter came into Washingtonduring the evening of Friday, 26 October, Washington time,beginning at about 1800. Another Khrushchev letter wasbroadcast by Yoa ow on Saturday morning, 27 October, Wash-ington time. -:The President's replies to the two letterswere made at different times on 27 October. hrushchev'sreply, accepting the position which the President had madeexplicit and had attributed to Ehrushchev, was made onSunday morning, 28 October, Washington time. This periodfrom Friday night through Sunday morning, culminating inEhrushchev's explicit agreement to retreat, is the finalstage of the Cuban crisis as examined in this paper, al-though the actual retreat was spread over a period ofseveral weeks after 28 October.

hrushchev's 26 October Letter: Ehrushchev's 26October letter has not been published, but the essentialsof it were immediately made apparent in the President'sreply of 27 October and were confirmed by Khrushchev inhis 12 December speech cited above. The letter has beendescribed as long, rambling, vague, troubled, and con-ciliatory, and as clearly from the hand of Khrushchevhimself. The point of the letter, in hrushchev's wordsof 12 December, was as follows:

We stated /in that letter7 that if theUnited States pledged not to Invade Cubaand also to restrain its allies from ag-gression against Cuba, then the SovietUnion would be prepared to remove fromCuba all of the weapons which the UnitedStates described as offensive weapons...

Ehrushchevh 27 October Letter: Another Khrushchevletter, containing the Cuba- or-Turkey proposal, began tobe broadcast by Moscow Radio on the morning of 27 October,just as the reply to the Ehrushchev letter of 26 Octoberwas reportedly being drafted. This second letter was ap-parently written during the night of 26 October Moscow time(it seems to have been originally dated 26 October) or in

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NO FORIG N DISSE/NO DI$SSE ABROAD/CONTROLLED DISSEN/BACEORO UD ONLY

TOP SECRET DINAR

the morning of 27 October, several hours after the composi-tion of the first letter. It was probably written beforethe time--the morning of 27 October, Moscow time--at whichKhrushchev fixes the "signal of utmost alarm" which causedhis retreat, but-it was certainly broadcast after that time,and was clearly not a letter in response, to sucE a "signal";on the contrary, it is a letter appropriate to a lull, andprovides additional reason for believing that Khrushchevhas. misdated the time or times of his greatest "alarm."

The letter began by expressing "great satisfaction"with the President's reply to U Thant's appeal to avoida confrontation of Soviet and American ships. The Presi-dent's "sensible step" was taken as showing his "solicitudefor the preservation of peace." Following a statement onthe importance of peaceful economic competition, Khrush-chev's letter spoke of the non-confrontation agreement asa "first step," and declared that the "main thing is tonormalize and stabilize the situation in the world betweenstates and between peoples."

Stating his understanding of the President's concernfor the security of the United States, Khrushchev noted hisown concern for Soviet security and pointed to Americanmilitary bases--with rocket weapons--surrounding the USSRand its allies. Khrushchev specified the existence of suchweapons in Turkey, and then asked:

Do you believe that you have the rightto demand security for your country and theremoval of such weapons /from Cuba7.., whilenot recognizing this rigit for us'? ... Howthen does recognition of our equal mili-tary possibilities tally with such unequalrelations between our great states?

(It will be recalled that Khrushchev since autumn 1961 hadperiodically attributed to the President, on the basis ofthe Vienna talks of July 1961, a belief that Soviet militarystrength was the equal of American military strength, and

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he had often asked that American policy be made consonantwith such a belief, in the sense of allowing the USSR"equal rights" of all kinds. He had also on occasionstated his true calculation that U.S. estimates of Ameri-can military superiority made the United States feel thatit did not have to give him what he wanted.)

After 1 xpressing optimism over the results of "talks",between Soviet -and American representatives under the aus-pices of U Thant, thrushchev's letter made its practicalproposal:

We agree to withdraw those weaponsfrom Cuba which you regard as offensiveweapons. We agree to do this and to statethis commitment in the United Nations.Your representative will make a statementto the effect that the United States, bear-ing in mind the anxiety and concern of theSoviet state, will withdraw its analogousweapons from Turkey.

Representatives of the UN Security Council, the letter con-tinued, "could control on-the-spot fulfillment of thesecommitments."

The letter further stated that the USSR would give'a pledge not to invade Turkey or to harass Turkey in otherways, in exchange for an American pledge not to invade orharass Cuba. The letter suggested a month as the outsidelimit for the implementation of the proposal.

Ehrushchev's letter at this point stated for thefirst time publicly, as Khrushchev had said in a privatetalk two days earlier, that the weapons in Cuba which "alarmyou" were entirely "in the hands of Soviet officers."These weapons would not "threaten" anyone if there were noattack on the USSR or invasion of Cuba. The letter con-cluded that an agreement could lead to other agreements.

This 27 October letter came as a surprise even toMoscow; the issue of Izvestiya which carried it on pageone had on page two a commenitry denouncing in advance any

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such proposal. Nevertheless, this second letter, in con-trast to the disorderly and apparently hastily-writtenletter of 26 October was a coherent statement which hadevidently been kept on hand for use at the proper time.Why was this thought to be the proper time?

It seeed, indeed, a very poor time for such a pro-posal. .The gr-6und had already been cut from under any suchproposal by Ehrushchev's letter of 26 October, in which he

'had made the much more attractive proposal of a dismantlingof the missile bases in Cuba in exchange for a no-invasionpledge. As noted, the 27 October proposal was broadcastafter ghrushchev, according to his later account, had addedup his information to a "signal of utmost alarm." Whileit seems apparent, both from the tone of this 27 Octoberletter and from other developments which will be discussedlater, that ghrushchev misdated the time of his "utmostalarm" (it was not really the morning of 27 October, as hesaid, but rather the 12 to 18 hours immediately prior tohis explicit capitulation on the afternoon of 28 OctoberMoscow time), nevertheless as of 26 October he had been ina state of some alarm, and there had been indicators sincethat time wfifdh~, one would think, would have increased hisalarm.

For example, three Soviet officials were intermit-tently present at the Press Club in Washington during the:afternoon of 26 October, at which time American newsmenthere were freely offering the opinion, based on conversa-tions with Administration officials, that an invasion ofCuba was set for the following day; one or another of theSoviet officia ,and it seems almost certain that they transmitted this in-formation to Moscow that afternoon (the night of 26-27October, Moscow time). Moreover, the British consul inMiami is reliably reported to have concluded, on the after-noon of 26 October, that everything was in readiness foran invasion of Cuba the following day; this conclusion, orthe information on which it was based, may also have gotto Moscow on that night.

Similarly, at noon of 26 October (Washington time)Mr. Lincoln White gave a press briefing in which he called

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attention to the sentence in the President's 22 Octoberspeech to the effect that further action would be justifiedif the build-up in Cuba continued. Later in the day a WhiteHouse statement noted that the USSR had shown no intentionto dismantle orto discontinue work on the strategic mis-sie sites, that work on the sites was proceeding 'rapily,"and that such°Activity was directed at "achieving a fulloperational.-apability as soon as possible." Further, onthe same day Jose Mora, Secretary-General of the OAS, statedpublicly that the missile bases "cannot be negotiable" andthat any measures taken by the United States to dismantlethe bases would be justifiable on the basis of the 23 Octoberresolution of the OAS and would be supported by almost allLatin American states.*

Finally, British officials in Washington are reliablyreported to have concluded on that day (26 October), on thebasis of conversations with American officials, that theUnited States would take additional action against the mis-sile bases within 48 hours if dismantling had not begun with-in that time. Although we think that this conclusion v~aspassed to Moscow, if at all, only after the time of theCuba-for-Turkey proposal, it could -ave reached Moscow onthe night of 26-27 October.

Thus, how was Ehrushchev's 27 October letter to beread? Was the letter serious? If so, lad hrushchev decidedthat his earlier attitude had been ezcessively conciliatory?Had the first letter been written by him personally and inhaste, and had it now been displaced by a proposal represent-ing his considered opinion after a day of discussion withother leaders? (The different styles of the two lettersgave some support to such a view, and there was also somesubsequent reporting to this effect.) Or had Ehrushchevhimself been displaced by a group with a tougher attitude?In connection with this question of a tougher attitude--whether Ehrushchev's or that of others--the news came tohand while the letter was being studied that a U-2 plane

Both the White House statement and Dr. ora's remarkswere presented by TABS on 27 October as evidence that"armed intervention" was imminent.

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was missing on a mission over Cuba that had begun about thetime the letter was being broadcast.*

Or was the letter less serious than the 26 Octoberletter? Did Ehrushchev regard his first letter as havingaverted an attack on Cuba and as having eased the situationgenerally, so that he was now free to try, at least briefly,for a better exchange, contending that his first vague let--ter.had been misinterpreted and that this was the officialversion of that letter? Or was the second.letter simplya means of warning that if the proposal in the first letterwere rejected, the price could only go up? Or was thesecond letter simply putting the Cuba-for-Turkey proposalon the record, in order to return to the question of U.S.bases overseas after the crisis in Cuba had been resolvedby a Soviet withdrawal on the basis of the first letter?

The questions as to the origins and motivation ofthe 27 October letter cannot be answered with confidence,

*It is still not certain, but seems probable, that theplane was brought down by a SAM installation near Banes.Ehrushchev at this time was preparing to promise (as hedid the next day) to withdraw the offensive weapons, anda shootdown at this time may conceivably have been part ofa hastily-contrived plan for preventing verification of hispromise. A better possibility, as two sources have asserted,is that Castro himself persuaded the Soviet commander ofa SAM detachment or emplacement to shoot down the U-2.Soviet discipline would be expected to be better than .that,but the situation had been confused by Castro's public state-ment earlier in the day that invading aircraft would "risk"defensive fire, a statement which might have been taken bya SAM commander as a change of signals from Moscow. In anycase, the action seems to have been an aberration. On thesame day, Castro in a letter to U Thant stated his willing-ness to negotiate a settlement. On 28 October, the CubanMinistry of Armed Forces in messages to anti-aircraftforces reiterated the instructions, apparently in effectsince 23 October, not to open fire unless attacked.

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and some observers regard these questions as the principalopacity of the week of the crisis. We are fairly wellsatisfied, however, with a simple explanation, namely:Khrushchev may well have been under pressure from others,but he remained -in command throughout the crisis; as of27 October Moscow time, the attack on Cuba reportedlyplanned for the-night of 26-27 October had not taken place(whether owiga3 to his letter or not), and the situation

.was indeed eased; he did indeed judge, possibly on thebasis of evidence not available to us, that he had a littlemore time (perhaps two or three days, the figure he latergave), enc;:h for' one more effort; and he wrote a letterdesigned to play one or two of the three roles suggested inthe foregoing paragraph, depending on the American response.As it turned out, the letter may or may not have played thesecond role (encouraging the United States to accept theimplied proposal in the 26 October letter), while it clearlyplayed the third role (putting the proposal on the record).*

The White House publicly parried the 27 October let-ter--the Cuba-for-Turkey letter--early in the day of 27October, in such a way as not to deprive Moscow of hope ofnegotiations on other matters (including U.S. bases) afterthe Cuban crisis was resolved. A White House statement(not signed by the President) noted that this most recentproposal was inconsistent with positions taken less than24 hours earlier, refused to make an agreement at theexpanse of an ally--the kind of agreement that Ihrushchevwas soon to make--and kept the focus on the need for earlyaction on the missile bases in Cuba.

*wt vill be recalled that Khrushchev in a private talkof 24 October, after he hid ordered his ships to turn back,had warned that~S iet ships would resist with armed force.In this light, the letter of 27 October, proposing a bargainhe had already undercut with a better offer, is not so sur-prising: on 24 October and again on 27 October, Khrushchevhad a hope that the American position could be changed, hedid what he safely could do to try to change it, and, thisfailing, he at least got the Soviet position on the record.

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. The proposal broadcast this morninginvolves the security of nations outsidethe Western Hemisphere. But it is theWestern Hemisphere countries and theyalone that are subject to the threat thathas produced the current crisis...

Wiork on these offensive weapons is,_ -still proceeding at a rapid pace. The

' first imperative must be to deal with thisimmediate threat, under which no sensiblenegotiations can proceed.

It is therefore the position of theUnited States that as an urgent preliminaryto consideration of any proposals, workon the Cuban bases must stop; offensiveweapons must be rendered inoperable; andfurther shipment of offensive weapons toCuba must cease--all under effective in-ternational verification...

Moscow did not publish the White House statement.

The President's Letter of 27 October: PresidentEennedy's leter of 27 October was received in Moscowduring the evening of 27 October Washington time, and was:probably in Khrushchev's.hand by 0600 on 28 October Moscowtime. In this letter the President, virtually ignoring theEhrushchev message of 27 October (the Cuba-for-Turkey pro-posal), opened with the statement that he (the President)had read Ehrushchev's letter of 26 October with care andwelcomed the statement of hrushciev's "desire to seek aprompt solution to the problem," and then reiterated thecentral point of the White Rouse comment on the Cuba-for-Turkey proposal earlier in the day:

The first .thing that needs to be done,however, is for work to cease on offensivemissile bases in Cuba and for all weaponssystems in Cuba capable of offensive useto be rendered inoperable, under effectiveUnited Nations arrangements.

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(Work on the missile sites in Cuba was in fact continuingon 27 October, by which time some missiles almost certainlycould have been launched at the U.S..from each of the URBMsites, although, as noted, it is not known whether warheadswere there; moreover, a command link between Moscow andCuba, apparently activated hurriedly during the week, becameoperational at" ust about this time.)

.On the hasumption that the work were stopped, theletter continued, the President's representatives in NewYork would work out with Khrushchev's representatives andwith U Thant an arrangement for a "permanent solution tothe Cuban .prpblem along the lines suggested in your letterof October 26th." At this point in his letter, the Presi-dent made explicit the proposal implicit in Ehrushchev'sletter of 26 October and attributed it to hrushchev:

As I read your letter, the key ele-ments of your proposal--which seem gen-erally acceptable as I understand them--are as follows:

(1) You would agree to remove these/above-cited7 weapons systems from Cubaunder appropriate United Nations observa-tion and supervision; and undertake, withsuitable safeguards, to halt the furtherintroduction of such weapons systems intoCuba.

(2) We, on our part, would agree-- upon the establishment of adequate ar-rangements through the United Nations to.insure the carrying out and continuationof these commitments--(a) to remove thequarantine measures now in effect and(b) to give assurances against an inva-sion of Cuba...

The President then stated in his letter that if Ehru-shchev would give similar instructions to his representa-tives, "there is no reason why we should not be able tocomplete these arrangements...within a couple of days."

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..-

Although the letter imposed no deadline for an agreement,the "couple of days" could have been read as thedeainefor both the agreement and the implementation of it.

The President's letter emphasized the urgency inits concluding paragraphs. While the United States waswilling to discuss "other armaments" and a "detente," theletter said, 'the first ingredient, let me emphasize, iscessation of wofkkon missile sites-in Cuba and measuresto render such weapons inoperable..." Further,

The continuation of this threat, ora prolonging of this discussion concern-ing Cuba by linking these problems to thebroader questions..., would surely lead toan intensification of the Cuban crisis anda grave risk to the peace of the world. Forthis reason I hope we can quickly agree alongthe lines outlined in this letter and inyour letter of October 26th.

Khrushchev's Capitulation, the 28 October Letter:.Khrushchev's 28 October letter, in which he accepted ashis own the positions which President Kennedy attributedto him in the President's 27 October letter, was broad-cast by Moscow Radio at about 0900 Washington time on 28October, about 24 hours after the broadcasting of Ehru-shchev's 27 October letter, and about 10 hours after thereceipt of the President's 27 October letter.

There are reaorts of an earnest dinenmIinn ar v.aa "struggle" among Soviet leaders prior to the dispatch ofthe 28 October letter, and one source has attributed to aSoviet leader the statement (later) that war had been "veryclose." However, on the basis of Soviet conduct throughoutthe venture, we do not believe that the dominant leaders(notably Ehrushchev) came close to deciding to take militaryaction, and the reported remark seems a part of the continu-ing Soviet effort to impress the United States with thedangers of the crisis in order to dissuade the United Statesfrom taking a hard line again. We think it likely that theSoviet leaders made the decision to capitulate in the sameway that they had made the decision to undertake the venture

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in the first place--with Khrushchev.leading the way, and withonly a few vocal and determined dissenters.

Throughout the day and night of 2? October Moscowtime, Khrushchev.had been given indications that his timewas running out.

One such indicator was an action taken by SecretaryMcNamara, in ordering 24 troop carrier. squadrons, compris-ing.about 14,000 air reservists, to active duty. Shortlythereafter, Assistant Secretary Sylvester issued a warn-ing--closely following the shootdown of the U-2 near Banes--that the United States would retaliate in the event ofinterference with American air reconnaissance of Cuba.

Another such indicator was a warning--which may havecome through two or more channels at about the same time--that the United States had imposed a deadline of 28 or 29October for a Soviet agreement to dismantle the bases orfor the dismantling to begin. As noted previously, Britishofficials in Washington had concluded on 26 October, onthe basis of conversations with American officials, that28 October was the deadline, and this conclusion may havebeen passed to Moscow. As also noted, this may have reachedMoscow as early as the night of 26-27 October; however, itis known that the question of the deadline was being dis-cussed in London by various offices of the British Govern-ment--in terms of a briefing given the British by U.S.officials in Washington the previous day--on the morningof 27 October; and it seems to us likely that this informa-tion was passed to Moscow, if passed at all, sometime inthe next 24 hours, the period just prior to Ehrushchev'scapitulation in his 28 October letter.

In any case, essentially the same information wasstated publicly by a Latin American diplomat in Washingtonon 27 October. A ashington radio station on the afternoonof 27 October quoted this diplomat as having learned thatthe Russians were being given only 48 hours to agree todismantle the bases.* The implication in this report was

*Tils is our recollection of the radio repor$; we donot have a text.

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that the diplomat had been briefed to this effect duringthe previous 24 hours. This report--which was almostcertainly transmitted at once to Moscow--must have hadsome impact on Khrushchev even if it were the only suchreport, and must have had a much greater impact if itfollowed or coincided with information from the Britishand/or others'tp.the same effect, i.e. that diplomatswere being told that 28 or 29 October was the deadline.

Further, in the early afternoon of 27 October Washing-ton time, or about 1930 Moscow time, there was what has beendescribed as an "uncannily well-timed" intrusion of anAmerican U-2 into Soviet arctic airspace. This was an ac-cident which could have been taken instead as an indicatorof American preparations for a strategic attack.

Another indicator may have come from Soviet officialsvisiting the Press Club in Washington on that evening. Dur-ing the evening, a report was circulating in the Club thatSecretary McNamara had told several leading newsmen to cometo the Pentagon at 0700 the next morning (28 October) fora briefing on a matter of great importance. The matter waspresumed by the newsmen at the Press Club to be an announce-ment that an air strike against Cuba was just then beingmade or was about to be made.

Finally, as previously noted, there were those pas-sages in the President's letter of 27 October which specifieda "ccuple of days" as sufficient for implementation of theproposal the President attributed to Ehrushchev and whichemphasized the urgency of an early agreement. The -"coupleof days" could reasonably have been read as the deadline forboth agreement and implementation, and the letter in anycase was consistent with all of Khrushchev's informationto the effect that he had-oniy a short time in which to act.Krushchev may have given more weight to this letter thanto any other single indicator in the 24 hours immediatelyprior to the Soviet capitulation, as this indicator camedirectly from the man who would order the action to be taken.

. It seems clear, in any case, that the period immedi-ately prior to the dispatch of Khrushchev's 28 October let-ter was in truth his time of "utmost alars." The only

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iS

question for debate seems to be that of whether the "signalof utmost alarm" was a single signal such as a warning o!:a 48-hour deadline reaching Khrushchev through pub] c :;'d/orprivate channels, or the passages in the President's 2'/October letter.esphasizing urgency, or (as we believe) ssignal compounded of such elements.

Just es Khrushchev had ordered his ships to turnback as soon as he was persuaded that the United States wasserious about the quarantine, and just as he had writtenhis 26 October letter when informed that an attack on Cubamight be imminent, so e - accepted as his own the proposalattributed to him by the President as soon as he was broughtto believe that his time was indeed up. Kommunist, in anarticle of December 1962, commented that in e uban crisisthe Soviet party and government "soberly weighed the balanceof power" and made their decision accordingly. (This seemsa half-truth: as weise* it, 'the Russians had weighed the"balance of power"' long before the crisis; in the crisisitself they were concerned with estimating whether the UnitedStates was willing to use its local and strategic superiority.)Soviet and Cuban sources agree that Castro was not consultedin the process of making and publicizing this decision.

Khrushchev's 28 October letter got quickly to thepoint. After expressing satisfaction and gratitude for the"sense of proportion" and '"realization of responsibility'"displayed in the President's 27 October letter, as well asKhrushchev's "great understanding" of American concern over"the weapons you describe as offensive," Khrushchev in thisletter then asserted that the Soviet Government,

in addition to earlier instructionson the discontinuance of further work onweapons construction sites, has given anew order to dismantle the arms whichyou describe as offensive, and to crateand return them to the Soviet Union.

The letter then reiterated, for the record, theSoviet contention that arms had been given Cuba becausethe island was under the "continuous threat of an invasion,"and that such arms were entirely for purposes of "defense"of Cuba.

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The letter continued:

I regard with respect and trust thestatement made in your message of 27October 1962 that there would be no at-tack, no invasion of Cuba, not only onthe partp.f the United States, but alsoon- the.-part of other nations of the West-ern Heisphere...

For this reason, the letter went on, the orders had goneout to discontinue construction and to dismantle thesites.* Further, "As I informed you" in the letter 'of 27October,

we are prepared to reach agreementto enable UN representatives to verifythe dismantling of these means... j

(This was not quite what Dhrushchev had said in that letter;he had said that, if there was an agreement on the mutualdismantling of missile bases in Cuba and Turkey, UN repre-sentatives could "control on-the-spot fulfillment." Now,with an agreement much less favorable to him, he was ap-parently unwilling to commit himself to on-the-spot super-vision.)

Ehrushchev's 28 October letter then expressed a hopethat Soviet and American leaders, and "other people of goodwill," once having improved the present "tense atmosphere,"could ensure that no other "dangerous conflicts" wouldarise. (This was apparently meant to suggest a desire toundertake negotiations on broader issues.)

The letter then expressed the hope that the Cubanpeople would "be certain that we are with them and are not

*Taese orders apparently did not go out until later inthe day, perhaps not until the President's agreemeiiliadbeen received.

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absolving ourselves of responsibility for rendering assist-ance to the Cuban people." In this connection, the letterprotested the "violation of Cuban airspace by Americanplanes,"* action which could lead to "dangerous consequ-ences." (This, seems to have been an empty gesture of sup-port for the Cubans, but it is conceivable that hrushchevhere was expressing a last-ditch hope of inducing the UnitedStates to suspend the overflights before ascertaining bythese. and other means that Ehrushchev had made good on his

'agreement, in yhich case Ehrushchev could reconsider whetherto make good.)

Having just backed down, Khrushchev then reiterated,for the record, the Soviet determination not to "falter inthe face of any test," the Soviet determination not to beprovoked but to retaliate against those who would "unleasha war," and the Soviet confidence that peace could bemaintained.

President ennedy commented immediately on the broad-cast text of Ehrushchev's 28 October letter. The President'sstatement, directed to Moscow over Voice of America in theearly afternoon, welcomed Ehrushchev's decision to back downas a "constructive contribution to peace." Later in theafternoon the President replied to the letter, stating thathe considered his letter of 27 October and hrushchev'sletter of 28 October to represent "fira pledges...whichought to be rapidly implemented." As the President put it,"we are receding from danger"; the Cuban problem remained,but the Cuban crisis, or at least the Cuban crisis of 1962,was over.

*This zollowed a lengthy passage about American U-2 vio-lations of Soviet airspace, including the U-2 incident overthe Chukhotsk Peninsula the previous evening.

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Recapitulation

On 22 October, the President revealed his knowledgethat, contrary to the burden of several Soviet statements,strategic missiles were being deployed in Cuba. Re re-minded Moscow of his warnings against ventures of this kindand against this particular venture, announced an imminentquarantine of.cuba, stated that further action would betaken .if the build-up continued, threatened retaliation'against the USSR if missiles were launched from Cuba, calledon hrushchev to withdraw "all offensive weapons," andwarned the USSR against hostile action elsewhere.

The USSR replied on 23 October with a public state-ment designed to put the United States on the defensiveso that the USSR could gain time for the purpose of involv-ing the United States in negotiations aimed at gaining yetmore time or some large concession. In this statement,the USSR neither admitted nor explicitly denied the deploy-ment in Cuba of strategic missiles, adhered to the formulaof defensive purpose, and presented the dispute as beingreally between tie United States and Cuba. The statementdenied the right of the U.S. to forbid a military build-up in Cuba (or elsewhere) or to impose a quarantine, warnedof the dangerous consequences of American actions, tookno note of the threat to the USSR, and asserted that theUSSR would try to keep the peace while looking to its. mili-tary readiness. On the same day, Ehrushchev ordered hisships carrying military cargoes to Cuba to turn back.

In the next three days, Khrushchev worked alongseveral lines. _e mad thr .t~teu.+ts igd to roassure the United States about the possibility of generalwar and also to deter the U.S. from attacking Cuba. Bethreatened to run the quarantine, but only alter orderingthe course changes, and in fact he took additional stepsto avoid a confrontation of Soviet and American ships inthe Caribbean. He privately admitted the deployment ofstrategic missiles in Cuba, and he continued the work onthe bases there. He tried hard to involve the U.S. innegotiations. He conducted probes on a particular proposi-tion, 'the mutual dismantling of bases in Cuba and Turkey.And he made preparations for a fast backdown if necessary,

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a proposal for the withdrawal of offensive weapons in exchangefor a no-invasion pledge.

By 26 October, the President had made clear to Khru-shchev that the United States would not permit itself tobe tied up for long in negotiations. Moreover, it was ap-parent from tbd massing of forces and from public statementsthat the .U.S....wis~ preparing to move to a higher level ofmilitary action..against Cuba in the near future. Becausethe Cubans are known to have expected an attack on or soonafter the night of 26 October, it seems likely that Khru-shchev's sense of urgency was heightened by frantic messagesfrom Havana. Thus Khrushchev's letter of 26 October, inwhich he implied his willingness to withdraw offensive wea-pong from Cuba in exchange for American assurances againstan invasion of Cuba, seems to have been designed to headoff any imminent attack on Cuba.

Without waiting for a reply, Khrushchev in a 26 Octoberletter failed to reaffirm that position and instead pro-posed a settlement more favorable to the USSR, namely themutual dismantling of bases in Cuba and Turkey. This letterapparently reflected a fresh calculation of his position.The attack on Cuba which he had feared on the previous dayhad not taken place; and he now estimated that he still hada little time--perhaps as he said, two or three days--inwhich to work; and his 27 October letter, like the earlier:threat to defy the quarantine, was a last effort to inducethe United States to change its mind, which, this failing,simply served to put the Soviet position on the record.

On the evening of 27 October, the President madeexplicit the proposal implicit in hrushchev's 26 Octoberletter and attributed it to Khrushchev. Within about 10hours, hrushchev capitulated. He was almost certainlyhelped to this decision--reached by the early afternoonof 28 October Moscow time--by additional indicators re-ceived on 27 October and on the morning of 28 Octoberthat the deadline might be either 28 October -r 29 October,and by those passages in the President's 27 October letter(received in the morning of 28 October) which suggestedthe possibility of a 29 October deadline and which inany case emphasized the urgency of an early agreement.Just as Khrushchev had ordered his ships to turn back assoon as he was persuaded that the United States was serious

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about the quarantine, and just as he had written his 26October letter when he first feared an attack on Cuba, sohe accepted as his own the proposal attributed to him bythe President as soon as he was brought to believe thathis time was indeed up.

At least-in the short run, hrushchev had lost heavily.He had been .1iown up as a liar (even if a half-hearted and

,elumsy liar), as being willing to sacrif ice an ally (andwithout even consulting that ally), and as a much less cooland capable man in a crisis than his principal adversary.Most of the problems which he had thought to solve with themissile base venture were now worse than they had been be-fore. 8e had not changed the balance of power, and theinferior Soviet position in this balance was now plain forall to see. He had now no hope of getting something fornothing in negotiations, and had weakened his position inany negotiations. He had lost ground with the underdevel-oped countries. He had exposed himself to Chinese ridiculeand had strengthened the Chinese case against his leader-ship. He had exacerbated his problems in attempting tocontrol Castro. He had broken even in only one respect:he still had his "socialist" Cuba, his foothold in theWestern Hemisphere; and even here it was made clear thatthis foothold could be maintained only on Aerican suffer-ance. Thus, from an American point of view, if the Bay ofPigs misadventure in April 1961 had been properly describedas a "perfect failure," then the week of 22-28 October 1962could properly be regarded as a dazzling success.

How much Ehrushchev would lose in the long run wasanother question. Some observers, seeing the failure of theventure as the extinction of Khrushchev's last hope of at-taining a position from which he could make rapid advances,have expected a new era, in which hrushchev would learnto live comfortably with the unfavorable balance of power,would provoke fewer and less serious crises, and in negotia-tions with the United States would aim less at taking pro-fit from crises which he himself had provoked and more atreaching mutually-beneficial agreements. Even if this con-clusion is sound, it is still open to Khrushchev to attemptto change the balance of power by less spectacular means:to try to achieve a recognized ilitary parity, for example,

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by agreements on limited measures of arms control, togetherwith a greater effort in research on advanced weapons. Inthis connection, he may regard the test-ban agreement itselfas evidence that he can still get more out of negotiationsthan the West can (i.e., it may be his judgment that thetest-ban will damage American more than Soviet militarydevelopment). With respect to the related problems whichhe had sought--to answer with the missile base venture, hemay still hope.to reduce his Chinese problem through changes

'in the Chinese leadership combined with fresh Soviet induce-ments; he may expect to gain much from American troubleswith the underdeveloped countries; and he may believe thatCuba's situation can be stabilized by Cuban efforts to re-duce tensions, exploiting an American reluctance to inter-vene.

In sum: Ehrushchev's immediate losses were great;his long-term losses, beyond the loss of time, remainuncertain.

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