Of october, 1962 when the United States and the soviet union faced off over missiles in cuba in one of the hottest episodes of the cold war. He explains how the ideological militancy of cuban leader fidel castro worried leaders in both moscow and washington who did not truly desire Nuclear Conflict despite their tough talk. Dr. Kengor all right, welcome. Here good we have cspan today. And we are going to talk about the cuban missile crisis. And specifically, fidel castro leading into the cuban missile crisis. So we will hit a. Of 1957 until 1950 nine until the missile crisis itself in october, 1962. Aboutst class we talked july 20 6, 1953 launch of the revolution, the communist revolution in cuba. That was when fidel and force of 100 to 200 rebels launched an attack on the Army Barracks santiago,o, in cuba. It did not go well. A bunch of rebels were killed. Fidel castro ascends to 15 years in prison for that. He did not quite serve 15 years in prison. He served less than one year, 11 months altogether. Run, het, he was on the was in exile. He went to mexico. His brother, raul as well. They would eventually come back and try to recommence the revolution, taking over in january, 1959. That is where we left off. Didnt mention the last class but youre going to read the article on this is the Herb Matthews piece in the New York Times. Yet,ifave not read it you have, you have probably been shocked, right . Your thinking what is this . Herb matthews was a reporter for the New York Times. He wrote a february 24, 1957 front page piece. For the New York Times. A major, major am a major piece. Books have been written about this. Her matthews and the york times and what it did with fidel castro. The piece is called cuban rebel is visited in hideout. The article was 4300 words in length. Most newspaper articles are not that long. Your typical oped piece in a newspaper column today is 600 or 700 or 800 words, in some cases 500 words. So it is a 4300 word article. It says this is the first of three articles by a correspondent of the New York Times that has just returned from a visit to cuba. I will quote a couple of items. Matthews wrote, fidel castro and his 26th of july movements are the flaming symbol of this opposition to the regime. That wouldve been the batista regime. The organization which is apart from that University Students opposition is formed of youth of all kinds, a revolutionary movement that calls itself socialistic. , whichlso nationalistic generally, in latin america means antiyankee. About castro, the program is vague and couched in generalities, but it amounts to a new deal for cuba. Dealis was framed as a new for cuba, small and, small d. But at that point in the history of americans,. The new deal is fdr. It amounts to a new deal for cuba, radical, democratic, and therefore anticommunist. That is how Herb Matthews was describing what fidel and his movement was about. The real core of its strength is that it is fighting against the military dictatorship of president batista. Democratic,t again, radical and therefore anticommunist as he put it. There come a he is interviewing castro and the people around castro. Speaks some english but he prefers to talk in spanish, which he did with extort neri eloquence. His is a political with extraordinary eloquence. His is a political mind rather than a military one. This country becomes one of the most military after castro takes over. He has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, and the need to restore the constitution, to hold elections. Castro took over 1950 nine, it is 2019 and we are still waiting for the elections. He has strong ideas on economy as well, but an economist would consider them week. Talksth of july movement of nationalism, anticolonialism, antiimperialism. I asked senor castro and he answered you can be sure we have no animosity toward the United States and the american people. Castro, two Herb Matthews of the New York Times, we are fighting for a democratic cuba. Dictatorship. The where not antimilitary, that is why we let the soldier prisoners go. He repeats, when we win, that soldiers working for batista, we will get them one headed dollars per month. That is about what everyone in cuba has gotten since, 100 a month. And they will serve a free, democratic cuba. That is the Herb Matthews piece. You cannot begin to understand it and that is why so many people of talked about it over the years, how crucial that article was in helping to resurrect fidel castro. In fact, jacob era with this would put itara this way, when the world had given us up for dead, the interview with matthews put the lie to our disappearance. Imagine that. Imagine that. They eventually hear castro in a small group escaped from cubas eastern mountains. They come back and establish a stronghold, seize power, when batista fled. Batista fled new years day, 1959. First, jan. 1, castros forces took a fan of that day and created a new government on january 5. And castro enter nevada on january 8. Havana on january 8. Here we are six decades later still waiting for those elections and that Free Democratic cuba for the people of cuba. Shortly after this, castro comes to the United States. 1959, a 12 april, day tour to the United States. He visited new york where they rolled out the red carpet. It was practically a tickertape parade, he what to washington, d. C. , did a number of really important interviews. Who is president at that point in time, 1959 in the audit states . Eisenhower, dwight eisenhower. Who was his Vice President . Richard nixon. Richard nixon was Vice President. Statess in the united and eisenhower was not totally sure exactly what to think about castro at that point. So this idea that eisenhower, in particular, or the administration at that time, was pushing castro toward the soviets. Not eisenhower, at the very least not eisenhower. He is not sure. You can look online and watch eisenhower interviewed about this. There was an old series called the eagle and the bear where eisenhower is talking about, some people thought castro might be the new liberator of cuba, especially after the years of batista, right . They were optimistic. Castro spoke to the National Press club in washington, d. C. , april 17, 1959. His cia director, allen dulles was not exactly sure how to respond to this either. Eisenhower was bothered by the fact that he had read about how castro and che in particular dealt with opponents. And you are reading this in your articles on che guevara, very brutal. And this bothered him. Eisenhower was not any intense firebreathing anticommunist. He did not like mccarthy. He did not like to mccarthy. I think was James Burnham of the National Review he said, made a snide comment when people on the far right in the United States were saying, oh eisenhowers procommunist. I think was burnham who said eisenhower is not a communist, he is a golfer. He is a golfer. Theres nobody more apolitical than eisenhower. So eisenhower, wanting to try to get a sense of what castro was all about, took his Vice President. Eisenhower did not want to meet with him him himself so he delegated the Vice President , Richard Nixon, to meet with castro. This was april 19, 1959. The was probably singleeffect jeffrey stafford, wrote on this, said that of all the meetings castro had during his washington visit, the one with nixon was the most significant of these meetings. Eisenhower really trusted nixon to give honest appraisals of people. One of the reasons eyes and are picked nixons he was impressed with how nixon handled the alger case. E alger hess and how fair nixon had dealt with him. He wrote a memo that for a long time was classified. There were four to five main recipients and this tradition was limited to allen dulles of the cia, the state department christian herder, John Foster Dulles at the state department, Mike Mansfield was probably the top latin america expert in the senate. Nixon said this about castro, the meat for two at half hours oneonone. Meet for two and half hours. He wrote this in the memo, castro is either incredibly naive about communism or he is under communist this upland. My appraisal of him as a man is mixed. Whatever we may think of him he is going to be a great factor in the develop much of cuba and very possibly in Latin American Affairs generally. A pretty good protection. He seems to be sincere. Heres that quote again. He is either incredibly naive about communism, right . Or under communist discipline. My guess is the former. The former, incredibly naive about coming is him. I have already applied his ideas of how to run and it got government or an economy are less developed than those of all most any world figure i have met in 50 countries. 50 countries. When he is in washington he was on meet the press, which was around even way back then. ,awrence spivak was the host who asked castro, i want to know where your heart lies in the struggle between communism and democracy . Democracy is my ideal, really. His word, really. Im not communist, i am not agreed with communism. There is no doubt for me between democracy and communism. So that is where he was or where he said that he was. So that is 1959. 1960 . Appened in november, president ial election, right . Guys, nixonof our and kennedy. Vice president Richard Nixon and john f. Kennedy. Kennedy was an intense anticommunist, all the kennedys work. His father, his brother, robert f kennedy. It sucks they were supporters of joe mccarthy. Bobby kennedy in fact they were supporters of joe mccarthy. Bobby kennedy worked for joe mccarthy. Sccarthy is godfather to rfk oldest daughter. Mccarthy dated one of the kennedy girls. He had been at the Kennedy Compound and hyannis port. They were really close. They were intense, Irish Catholic anticommunists, the kennedys and mccarthy. So kennedy really wants castro out. And by that point, in 1960, so did nixon. Next he became convinced that this guy had to go. He had to be removed. Eisenhower, however,so the world does not know this, but the Eisenhower Administration was already working on a plan, a covert action plan, to try to take out castro. But eisenhower did not want to act on it, especially prior to the election, because he thought it would look like they were trying to influence the election. Nixon later wrote about this in one of his first memoir books. Greatcalled six crises, a book, really, really good. So what did they do . Nixon kennedy had a bunch of debates, right . Radio and television. What is the general assessment, who won the debate . What is the common take on this . Kennedy won the Television Debate and makes when the radio. Exactly, people who listen to it on the radio set nixon one and people who watch on to be set kennedy one. Kennedy looks better than nixon, right . He looked better on camera. One of the first tv campaigns. So, kennedy is out hawking nixon on this. Kennedy is openly against castro, Holding Nothing back. Nixon later wrote this, after the election was over and after nexen lost. I knew we had a Program Underway to deal with castro. But i cannot even hint at its existence. Much less spell it out. Under no circumstances could it be disclosed or even alluded to. Nixon and kennedy were buddies they were old friends. Nixon visited kennedy on kennedys deathbed, one of the numerous times and kennedys life when he received last rites of the church, at least a halfdozen times. Shot so ironic that he was november, 19 623. If is only 46 years old did my math right. He was already very sick with addisons disease and all kind of health problems. But they were old friends. Tell kennedy hey, jack, i want castro out as well. But we have this plan, we have this covert plan to get rid of him, but i cannot act on it. The old man does not want to do it does not want to tax on it. Kennedy the old man does not want to act on it. Kennedy wins the election in november, 1960. At this point in 1959 not so much but in 1960, 19 61, these are big years where castro moves toward the soviets. And cuba is no longer going to be the number one u. S. Ally in latin america. Instead it is going to become an adversary of the United States. I have a list here of a bunch of Different Things i will not go through all of them, different indicators in the late 1950s and 1960, that it looks like castro was moving toward a communist, prosoviet government. Among these, his brother, raul, i hade knew had a friend a friend to this intelligence work, we knew raul castro was attending soviet world youth festivals prior to this. We thought raul was even more of a communist ideologue than fidel was. Guevara asad che part of their group. Have a whole bunch on che that i will probably hit the next class. You guys are going to read up on him. City, fidel met in mexico argentinian revolutionary, born 627 1967, 19 who referred to the United States as the great enemy of mankind. Check avera hated the United States, absolutely hated the United States. Che guevera. 1960, castros nationalizing property throughout cuba. We now have all sorts of documentation on this and we have had for decades. 1960, we know that her nest as maclean, one of the top leaders in the soviet government had visited cuba at that point. This is from sergeant khrushchev , the son of Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the soviet union. Sergei would become his biographer. 1959,ober 12, this is sergei, by oct 12, alexi avenue, top soviet official, was already made with check avera and on the 15th he met with fidel castro. In february, 1960, he organized the soviet International Trade exhibit. So they were already having communications. And it looks like by 1960 there were already soviet military advisers. That were in cuba. Definitely soviet political officials. And it looks like even way back in 1960 that mccoy and and khrushchev and others were already talking about putting soviet missiles in cuba. At that point. So that is all going on in 1960. All right. So all that happening. Here is a date for you. Ready . 1961. 3, that was the date the u. S. Formally severed all diplomatic relations with cuba. So if you are looking for kind of a flashpoint, january 1961. At that point, i can still president. Jfk is inaugurated a couple of weeks later around january 17, january 20, 19 621. So jfk comes into office and he is trying to figure out what to do with castro and wants to get rid of castro and he finds out the previous ministration had developed a covert action plan to overthrow fidel. What is is become known as . Bay of pigs. Bay of pigs. Pigsat is the bay of invasion, april 17, 1961. Exactly twolmost years to the day that castro gave that interview to arndt spivak on meet the press, met with nixon for two and half hours. Spoke at the National Press club. Act onedy decides to this covert action plan, bay of pigs, which is named for a special beach or area in cuba. I could spend a lot of time on that but we want to get to the cuban missile crisis. Group,her, this was a somewhere around a thousand or , who wantedexiles to overthrow the castro government. And they were supported and trained by the United States. The idea here was they would invade cuba at this particular spot, and there would be a series of airstrikes by u. S. Forces. The idea of airstrikes was to clear off the beaches, clear off the area, so these guys could go in, have a clear landing area, they could get out there, the 1000, 1100, 1200, could disseminate into the area. Some of the language used was the hope they could foment an uprising, get the people of cuba to join in with them. Here comes a group to help them overthrow fidel. Right . Here they come, hear the guys to help us overthrow fidel. Did it work . Not at all. Nasty. Wiped out on the beaches. At least 100 killed. Many of them taken prisoner. As,as, bay of pigs, known bay of pigs fiasco. A complete fiasco, a complete embarrassment to the United States. The soviets really made fun of kennedy over that. In fact when kennedy went meet with khrushchev, the soviet leader at geneva, in june of 19 621, and he was interviewed by the New York Times, the reporter said how to go . And kennedy set that it was awful, the worst moment of my life. Khrushchev rolled right over me. He think sam week. That she things i am weak. Think about this. The previous president have been eisenhower who organized in the normandy landing, the Supreme Commander in world war ii. The first allied commander of nato, eisenhower a world war ii hero. And he is replaced by kennedy, who is 43 years old when he was elected and he was seen as this daddys boy, right . This playboy who had been bought into office and some of the first elections. So for him to be, for him to replace eisenhower, and then they tried the bay of pigs . And it happened like that . Soviet official said, we just look at this and stroke our head and said how can a military power like United States allow Something Like this to happen in their backyard and be so impotent. Because cuba is how far from the United States . Like a hundred miles from florida. Is probably 70 mouse from key west. It is 70 miles from key west. It is so close that you could swim from cuba to the United States, right . Most people have not made it. A lot of people have tried it. The bay of pigs failed. That is april, 19 621. Then the worst possible thing happens that we were really afraid of, this makes cuba even a closer ally of the soviet union. What we fear the most is not only that cuba will be an ally of the survey union, but that the soviet union will place not just military divisors there, not his military equipment there, but what . New care weapons. That would be a catastrophe Nuclear Weapons. That would be a catastrophe. At that point it probably took soviet missiles fired at the United States 80 minutes to get there, firing them from soviet territory. At that point, now if they have missiles on what we call our doorstep, our backyard, in cuba, 70 miles from key west. And how far to the entire east coast . How close to miami and washington dc . You have cut delivery time from 80 minutes to a few minutes. This changes from 18 minutes to a few minutes. This changes the entire strategic calculus with all competition with the soviet union. The one thing you cannot have his Nuclear Missiles there. You cannot let the soviet have Nuclear Missiles there. Setting u2 spy planes doing reconnaissance, gliding high up in the sky over the top of cuba, taking pictures. 19 then one day, october 14, a u. S. Spy plane discovered that the soviets were building missile bases in cuba. What if the things that through them off, and a good book on the subject was graham allisons book, essence of decision. He goes through the different decisionmaking. It has to be at least 30 years or 40 years old now but it is really good. One of the things that threw off our military advisors, and we saw how the soviet missiles were arranged, they were arranged and a trapezoidal pattern. Which really threw us off because we thought, well, that, that is how the soviets arrange their missiles in the eastern bloc. They must want us to see them. Thatater we figured out no, this is just standard bureaucratic procedure. Or soviet Missiles Division rockets division, that is how they set up Nuclear Missiles. So nobody thought to shape them in a different way or camouflage them or put them under tents. Theyre just doing them the way they did them and czechoslovakia. This confounded our guys who thought they must want us to see them. Note. Nope. Just soviet bureaucracy, that is the way they arranged them. There is the rep nightmare. The nightmare comes true. Jfk called in one of the soviet diff medic officials in wasington, and asked him, and asked him pointblank are you placing Nuclear Missiles in cuba . And the guy was shocked and lied to them flat out and said no. Then he got on the horn to moscow and said, he knows. How does he know . I dont know, but he knows. They have to figure out what to do about this. He meets with his military advisors. Jfk and political visors. He and his brother bobby, rfk, spend a lot of time on this. There are debates. Some people want military action to take out the soviet missile sites, special becauseand this is important, think about thiswe do not know if the missiles were armed. We did not know what stage they were in. So some people around kennedy said look, take out those missiles now, before their armed. And then we will not be able to take them out. Then we will be in a black male scenario, where they could hit us with live nuclear a blackmail situation where they could hit us with a live nuclear attack. He said i do not my brother it to be a pearl harbor in reverse where we do a preemptive strike on cuba and we start the war. That she said i do not brother to that. He also said if i do that i will probably be killing russians and if we kill russians words that lead to if we kill russians, where does that lead to . So he decided instead on what . What is the word . A quarantine. Good job and you got the right word. It is typically called anna bargo instantly called and embargo. He did not want to do and embargo because an embargo could be considered an act of aggression or an act of war. So the phrase that kennedys was that they were going to quarantine cuba. To cut off the perimeter as much as they could with u. S. Boats. At any boats that would be coming into cuba including from thesoviet union, would United States would reserve the right or try to assert the right to try to boarded the ships to see if they were if there were soviet Nuclear Warheads on their. Any boats coming into cuba and, include from the soviet union, the United States would reserve the right to try to go aboard and see if there were soviet Nuclear Warheads. Meantime, the headline, president embargoes cuba. Kennedy said great, thanks. He gets a nationally televised speech on october 22. That is a big deal. At that point, this is usually referred to as 13 days. Right, the infamous for 13 days of october. There have been films and dock interest in movies called 13 days. And documentaries, 13 days. Kennedy announces he is going to be getting a major speech on television. The New York Times knew about it. I think it is that old eagle and the bare serious that has one of the editors of the New York Times talking about it. They called kennedy and said we know what is going on, the soviets have missiles in cuba. Kennedysoviets said said that is right. You know what im going to do about it . And he said well im going to call for a quarantine. But i do not you print that. But if you want to go ahead and print the other thing, that is ok. Im giving a nationally televised speech. So the speech. This is an amazing statement. An amazing statement. I should type this up for you. I usually write it on the chalkboard. Of course if i write it you cannot read it anyway, it is not legible. America, it shall tothe policy of this nation, regard any Nuclear Missile this isom cuba all one sentence against any nation in the western hemisphere. Ill type this up and send it to you. As an attack by the soviet union on the United States. Requiring a full retaliatory response upon the soviet union. An amazing statement. Isnt it . It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any Nuclear Missile launched from cuba against any nation in the western hemisphere, as what . As an attack by the soviet union on the United States. And how will respond . A fullll require retaliatory response upon the soviet union. This makes you wonder, george ball and others in the kennedy ministration, would later say, i do not know if we early understood the full indications of what were doing here. Think about, this commits us. What happens if you have a renegade in cuba. Cuba, evenebody in by accident, launch a Nuclear Missile that has some other country somewhere in the western hemisphere and kennedy assange that will be interpreted as an attack by this kennedy is saying it will be interpreted as an attack by the soviet union requiring a full retaliatory response. So missiles from cuba would hit whatever country in the western hemisphere. Then we would the soviet union . Then they would hit us, right . One on one. And then surely a missile from cuba would be fired against United States and the u. S. Against cuba. And then the warsaw pact in Eastern Europe and nato in western europe, an attack against one is an attack against all. You could have a dozen missiles in the air, just after the first round. Assuming after that point cooler heads prevail. This could unleash the big one. Early 1960s. The twilight zone. Old episodes, right . All the old blackandwhite movies . People are building bomb shelters. And that week, talk your grandparents, people went to the little mom and pop shop grocers. In those days they did not have safeway and giant eagle and all these places and people went there and made a run on all the different food that was on the shelves and took it home and put it in their basement. People thought this was it. At last, here comes armageddon. You thinko again, kenny is really committing us to something pretty major kennedy is committing us to something major. Yet it is also kennedy telling khrushchev this is really serious. We are not messing around here. Take this very, very seriously. If one of these is launched we will consider that an attack by the soviet union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the soviet union. Ok. So that is october 22. Eventually things calm down, but with no help from fidel castro. I gave you a handout. Do you have a handout . Interview, pbs 2001. Ur, that was done in have wonderful, you Terrence Smith of pbs news hour, back then it was the Mcneil Lehrer news hour and he is interviewing robert mcnamara. Mcnamara was jfks secretary of defense so he knew this better than anybody living. Because jfk was gone and rfk was gone. Rk was assassinated, just like his brother, assassinated in 1968. Also interviewed here is keep payne. He is interviewing him and robert mcnamara. Mcnamara. Mith, robert i thinkyne says here, one of the most important messages regarding the cuban missile crisis, is that on the other site, there may be ideological zealots and control. He is talking here about fidel and che. What is interesting is what is going on on the other side. We now know what was going on was that castro and check avera were che guevara recommending to Nikita Khrushchev that the actually use the nuke their weapons. Kennedy did not want to nuke anyone. Khrushchev did not want to nuke anyone. Fidel and che did. Use the missiles, use the Nuclear Weapons against United States. So here we have a very serious crisis where at least one party, at the seniormost levels of government, is advocating the use of Nuclear Weapons against United States. That is payne. Now mcnamara jumps in, may i . We are talking about here the film 13 days. The film shows correctly on saturday night, the 27th of october, crinkle moment a critical moment of the 27th of october in 1962. The majority of kennedys military and civilian advisers were paired to recommend attack. At the time were prepared to recommend attack. At the time the cia said they do not believe there were any clear warheads there for the missiles. It was not till 30 years later we learned there were 106 t two 162 or headse there. While. Wow. I loveor tactical use. The phrase, tactical, you know what tactical does . And 60 for the missiles target on the u. S. Which would, as was properly said, have killed, killed, killed 80 million americans. That is just killed. Forget about casualties, people with other problems, radiation, cancer. And that is just from those missiles there. Response, if those are fired, the United States is going to fire in cuba and the soviet union is going to fire on the United States and we will fire in the soviet union and back and forth in eastern and western europe, this is just the start of it. 80 million americans . Do you have any died in world war ii . Like 300,000. Terrence smith says to mcnamara, 30 years later you said you discussed this with fidel castro . Yes, i was there when we learned this from a russian general, there being a conference in havana. Castro was chairing a meeting examining this. The general when he retired had been the commander of all warsaw pact forces in 1962. I like this interview because this is good inside information from the primary sources. He says as a young colonel he went to cuba and disclosed there were 162 warheads there. I turned to castro, said mcnamara, and i said, mr. President i three questions. Did you know the warheads were there . If they were if you did would you recommend they were used . If they were used what would have happened . He said bob, i did know they were there. I did recommend they were to be used, as you said. What wouldve happened to cuba . It went been totally destroyed. It would have been totally destroyed. You and kennedy would have done the same thing in the case of the u. S. By the way, no, they would not have. Smith, he saw no other way out. Mcnamara, listen to this religious language. Note, castro wouldve pulled the temple down on his head. Pulled the temple down on his had. As, let mepayne follow up on that because che guevara said he was ready for martyrdom, and for cuba as a country to be national martyrdom. He quotes the vice premier on the soviet side. This is what the soviets said to these two nuts. In cuba. One of which, College Students will be wearing che guevara as a tshirt, this guy wanted to nuke the United States. We see to the cubans, our willingness to die beautifully. We do not think it is worth dying beautifully. The advantage to atheism. Nobody wants to die, to go up in a Mushroom Cloud if that is all there is. On the one side you have the soviets who was deter a ball deterrable the circumstances. On the other you have ideological zealots beyond deterrence in that case. That is where they stood. So, how did this and . End . Here is, by the way, che guevara speaking to sam russell of the daily worker of britain, in november, 1962. Che if the Nuclear Missiles had remained we would have fired them against the heart of the u. S. Including new york city. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims. Especially against United States, the great enemy of mankind. By the way, these guys planned out even a thanksgiving day macys day parade attack in new york city, not nuclear, but with conventional explosives. And end, and who ended it . Could we have to give credit to hear . Nikita khrushchev, the soviet leader. It is one of the only kinds asked one of the only times, ladies and zelman, ladies and willmen, paul kengor complement soviet. He said they are nuts. Maybe one of the days people rave about how wonderful castros cuba is with Free Health Card for education and che guevara, but these guys are insane. These guys are complete the insane. Sergei, who is one of his major biographers, did a major three volume biography of him. That he had tos, inform moscow as quickly as possible. Fidel, he had to inform moscow as quickly as possible of his decision to sacrifice cuba. Aware as they direct their plans that cuba was ready to perish for the sake of victory. The soviet ambassador alexi avenue, that guy who met with them back in 1959, was so stunned, as you listen to castro, castros words, this is, again, sergei, when he heard castro countenance a first strike in the United States, speechless,od frozen, holding his breath as he heard castro telling him it is either we or they. Cuba and the communist world or the United States. If we want to avoid receiving the first strike, said castro, if an attack is inevitable, then wipe them off the face of the earth. Writes sergei chris have, was crushed, by his comrades thinking. Crushed. Not waiting for an answer as castro started to write his feelings on paper, which seems like he was writing last testament, and farewell, fidel was ready to go, to go up in a giant Mushroom Cloud, for marxism. Outkhrushchev found this and immediately called a late sunday night meeting in moscow at the kremlin. The soviet leader dead, with his advisers the soviet leader did so, with his advisers. They met in the code room of the soviet foreign ministry. And chris aborted immediately, exact words, remove them and khrushchev ordered immediately, in his exact words, remove them, remove them as soon as possible. Get the missiles out of there. Because these two guys are nuts. Crew should have now felt he had common cause with kennedy and the United States. Khrushchev. Minister andre we now have a common cause to those pushing us towards war. That would be fidel castro and che guevara pushing us toward war. As for fidel castro, he was furious advocated khrushchev. Castro was mortally castro was furious at Nikita Khrushchev. He was mortally offended because he had not managed to engage in a fight with the americans. He made up the is mine to die a hero and now considered Nikita Khrushchev a traitor. But khrushchevs great credit, again, he got them out of their. This is one last quote from sergeis memoirs. With five minutes and then i will take questions. Sergei writes, fidel to not realize the consequences. It seems to castro that if the subunit stuck struck the first blow, that is the soviet union struck the first blow, castro resolved unhesitatingly to sacrifice castro, an international martyr to cap communism. Cuba would perish, yes, but socialism would be victorious. Perhaps it was for this minute that he agreed without hesitation to base for missiles and Foreign Military units on the island. The motherland or death, we shall be victorious. That became the meaning of his existence. It was why castro preserved an unshakable calm in the face of impending danger. Guest at castros resolve but did not realize how hard it had gone. Cuba was ready to perish for the sake of victory. Whenose this, it ends khrushchev sends a few notes to kennedy, and kennedy agrees with khrushchev, that khrushchev will remove the missiles, if United States promises not to invade cuba. And there is also a second communication, which called on the United States to remove missiles from turkey. And kennedys public response ,as to accept the first offer and apparently secretly, privately, they agreed to remove the missiles from turkey. There is a lot that has been written on this. It is actually very, very complicated thing. They secretly agreed, on the United States, to remove the missiles from turkey, but not publicly say that, which soviet officials saw as a giant loss, and the bears mentor khrushchev. They also sought and embarrassment to khrushchev. The also sought as investment to khrushchev because he had put missiles there to gain an advantage over the United States , not realizing he was dealing with ideological psychopaths who could have lunch nuclear armageddon. So krish out for this and other reasons is pressured out of office. Khrushchev is pressured out of office. He is the only one to walk out of office. The others died in office. One of the reasons was that humiliation over the cuban missile crisis. Any questions from anybody . In the back first . Cubaere the people of really aware of their leaders decisions to sacrifice the whole nations . And if they were, with the military strong and oppressive against the people . Dr. Kengor that is a great question. Youre dealing with a Society Without freedom of speech and without people freely speaking to the press. I do not know to what extent they knew what was going on. I doubt, i do not think you had any idea how bad it was. Many up to that point have been close allies with United States, because we had such a Good Relationship cuba. One of there wonderful things, is cuba is ever freed, if theres anybody left from the cuban missile crisis by the time cuba is finally free to fully speak to the press, it would be nice to find out from people what they were thinking at the time. I had a student who had this class 10 or 15 years ago, who went home at they skidding break and talked to her family about all of this. And her uncle told her that, know her aunt, said it was a great moment for me because your uncle finally popped the question. Because he. Thought this was it. This was new the armageddon. So after waiting and waiting, he finally asked me to marry him. People thought, you will be surprised when you talk to your grandparents, sissy to see that trepidation, the deep fear and anxiety people had in the month of october. And you will probably say that is crazy, why didnt you ever tell me about this . And they will probably say well, you never asked. People thought this was the big one. Tim . What about the impact on the local level, when you had, for example soviet summaries with , that itipped warheads was took at a u. S. Convoy . What about the impact of those on the local level . Dr. Kengor made there in cuba . Military [indiscernible] yes, i do not know what to say, except, that would be very scenic and as well very significant. We were sending huge amounts of military troops into florida. In fact one of the things the New York Times learned about, was that people in florida were saying, we are looking at the robo tax and they are by the thousands military guys coming in here looking at that military i at the Railroad Tracks and there are thousands of guys coming in here. Why are all these military guys coming into florida . They knew something was going on that was very serious on the ground. Yes . Fear,reat deal of [indiscernible] dr. Kengor yes so you could see a scenario like this with north korea. Although in north koreas case, i do not know how it would play out differently, other than maybe a very serious credible threat by the north korean dictator that looked like ok, this time he means it, he is going to launch, right . And then, how you would handle that in response. But see, this is a perfect example. If you do think he is going to launch or he might launch, do you do a primped of strike . And if you do a preemptive strike . And if you do in north korea, what would that be of . At least in cuba we have been all over the island for decades so we would have a good idea of exactly where, in fact we do because of the u2 spy planes exactly where the missile sites were so we could take them out. In the case of north korea, we do not, to not to my knowledge know where they are, they are underground or in buildings or in silos or . Not sure exactly where they keep them. It would be much more difficult to know what to take out in the case of north korea. The case here that is really troubling is, here you had to any logical fanatics, fidel and che who are ready for international martyrdom to sacrifice cuba for the cause of communism, which freaked out even the soviets [laughter] they just cannot believe it. These guys in cuba are not good guys. They are bad guys. Theyve that is a good place to stop. Ok, i will see wednesday. You can watch lectures in history every weekend on American History tv. We take you inside college classrooms, to learn about topics ranging from the american revolution, to 9 11. That is saturday at 8 00 p. M. And midnight eastern, on cspan3. American history tv products are now available at the new cspan online store. Go to cspan store. Org to see what is new for American History tv, and check out all the cspan products. Weekend, on american artifact, we visit the osamas heritage day in carlisle, pennsylvania about to learn armyshe the u. S. Heritage day to learn about the sherman tank. Heres a preview. Good morning. My name is al and i am one of the volunteers here at the Army Heritage case and center in carlisle. We will talk about the american m for medium tank, what is the most prolific tanks of the Second World War. This particular example is one of the earlier versions. 3 tank armed with a 75 mill meter main gun. If we moved the commanders weapon station here it also has the caliber 50 machine gun up top where the commander is. M191930 caliber machine guns, one mounted coaxially the main gun and one mounted here, in the front of the tank. This one is manned by the valve gunner. 18 if you take a look, he can move that up and down and will shy the way the ball trent works. He will show you the way the ball tourette works. The only one that asked exceeded the number of these tanks where the soviet t 34 series. Of thes used by everyone allied nations in the Second World War to include england, the soviet union and even the nationalist chinese received sherman tanks as the result of a land lease program. So it really was a vehicle with a strategic effect on the war because of the numbers of those that were out there, and the number the allied nations that use them. This tank was famously reliable. It had an operational readiness rate of 94 . As compared to some of the german tanks which operational readiness rates offered around for percent to 60 hovered around 50 to 6 . 260 . To 60 . To us it is a labor of love to keep these operational and talk to the soldiers who served on them. It is important to convey the stories of the soldiers who served on these tanks and keep the history the armored warfare of the u. S. Army alive. Through the mud and the sands of a dozen foreign lands, u. S. Tankers are following fighting the wars. Thetanks keep on fighting fore victory, we will roll on to victory for the tankers are first in the fight [military music] learn more about the history of the sherman tank sunday at six clock p. M. And 10 00 p. M. Eastern, on american artifacts. And 10 00 p. M. Eastern on american artifacts. Youre watching American History tv. In 1921, millions of soviet citizens faced starvation in one of the worst famines in history. Setting aside political differences, Vladimir Lenins new soviet government asked herbert hoovers American Relief administration for help. Next on American History tv, historian Douglas Smith gives an illustrated talk about the story based on his book, the russian job the forgotten story of how america saved the soviet union from ruin. Hillwood Estate Museum and gardens hosted this event. Kate good evening and welcome to hillwood Estate Museum and gardens. I know many of you know already, but in case we have not met, my name is kate markert, the executive director here. I want to thank you in joining us tonight as we welcome back Douglas Smith, longtime friend of hillwood and author of the book the russian job the forgotten story of how america saved the soviet union from ruin. You may have noticed that the theater looks just a little bit different tonight
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