The Crisis That Was Real

Last week's Soviet troop controversy raised echoes of the Cuban missile crisis, but that was a far different affair.

On Oct. 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy told a stunned nation that he was ordering a naval "quarantine" of Cuba because the U.S. had just acquired proof that there were Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles on the island. In addition, he said, sites were being built for intermediate-range ballistic missiles capable of striking at targets in much of North America. Not only were sites for the missiles under construction, he charged, but the assembly of Soviet jet bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons was well under way.

Kennedy demanded that the weapons and installations be dismantled and removed from Cuba under the supervision of U.N. on-site observers. In what seemed to be a thinly veiled ultimatum to the Soviets, Kennedy added: "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response on the Soviet Union." The next day, the Organization of American States gave its unanimous backing to the U.S. position. To many, the world appeared on the brink of war.

The blockade, limited to stopping only the flow of offensive weapons, went into effect on Oct. 24. In a matter of hours a number of Soviet ships bound for Cuba began to change course. The first Soviet ship was halted on the high seas the next day by U.S. naval vessels but allowed to pass following only a "visual" inspection. On Oct. 28, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev officially informed the U.S. that the offending weapons in Cuba would be removed as soon as possible. Kennedy had won the hair-raising showdown.

Fidel Castro, however, refused to permit on-site inspections, and held out for almost a month against returning the planes. He agreed to do so only toward the end of a 24-day mission to Havana by Soviet First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan. Kennedy then declared that the quarantine was lifted, though on-site inspection had never taken place.

The Kennedy-Khrushchev understanding, some aspects of which are still secret, established what has been a modus vivendi for the two superpowers: the U.S. agrees not to invade Cuba, and in exchange the Soviets pledge not to base offensive weapons in the country.

What "offensive" means has not always been certain. In September 1970, the Nixon Administration protested that Moscow was attempting to establish a submarine base at Cienfuegos, and the understanding was enlarged to include the prohibition of a military naval base on the island and the servicing of nuclear submarines. In 1978, the U.S. expressed concern that 20-odd Soviet MiG-23s in Cuba could be modified to carry nuclear weapons, but later accepted Soviet assurances that the planes were defensive only.

The Kennedy and Nixon understandings with the Soviet Union did not resolve a more general problem. Many Americans, believing devoutly in the Monroe Doctrine's repudiation of non-American military bases in the Western Hemisphere, have never accepted the idea of the Soviet Union having any military role in Cuba whatsoever. But the Monroe Doctrine's applicability today is essentially symbolic.

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