Crisis itself in october, 1962. That will pick off a little bit where we left off in the last class. The last class we talked about july 26, 1953 launch of the revolution, the communist revolution in cuba. And that was when fidel and a force of 100 to 200 rebels launched an attack on the Army Barracks in santiago, cuba. 15 years in prison, so less than a year in prison, 11 months altogether. With that, he was on the run, he 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 about where we left off. One thing i didnt mention the last class, but youre going to read the article on this, its the Herb Matthews piece in the New York Times. If you have not read it yet if you have, you have probably been shocked, right . By this article, you are thinking what is this . What is this piece . Herb matthews was a reporter for the New York Times. He wrote a february 24, 1957 front page piece for the New York Times. Major, major, major piece. And books have been written about this. Herb matthews and the york times and what it did with fidel castro. And the piece is called cuban rebel is visited in hideout. The article is about 4300 words in length. Most newspaper articles are not that long. In fact your typical oped piece in a newspaper, a column today is 600 or 700 or 800 words, in some cases like 500 words. This 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. And i will just quote a couple of items from here. 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. It is also nationalistic, which generally, in latin america means antiyankee. Matthews says about castro, the program is vague and couched in generalities, but it amounts to a new deal for cuba. So this was framed as a new deal for cuba, small and, small d. But at that point in the history of americans. The new deal is fdr. The new deal. 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. But note that again, democratic, radical and therefore anticommunist, as he put it. Put it this way. So, matthews is there, he is interviewing castro and the people around castro. Senor castro speaks some english but he prefered to talk in spanish, which he did with extraordinary eloquence. His is a political mind rather than a military one. This country becomes one of the most militarized in latin america after castro takes over. Has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, and the need to restore the constitution, to hold elections. This is 1957, castro took over 1959. It is 2019 and we are still waiting for the elections. He has strong ideas on economy too, but economists would consider them week. The 26th of july movement talks of nationalism, anticolonialism, antiimperialism. I asked senor castro about that. He answered, you can be sure we have no animosity toward the United States and the american people. Castro to herbd matthews of the New York Times, we are fighting for a democratic cuba. And in and to the dictatorship. Where not antimilitary, that is why we let the soldier prisoners go. He repeats, when we win, that soldiers working for batista, we will give them about 100 a 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, che guevara would put it this way. When the world had given us up for dead, the interview with matthews put the lie to our disappearance. So imagine that. Imagine that. So they eventually hear castro in a small group escaped from cubas eastern mountains. And they come back, they establish a stronghold, seize power when batista fled. Batista fled on new years day, january 1, 1959. I talked about that at the end of class. Castros forces took a fan of that day and created a new government on january 5. And castro himself entered havana on january 8. January 1959. Here we are six decades later still waiting for those elections and that Free Democratic cuba, as are the people of cuba. Shortly after this, castro comes to the United States. So this was april 1959, this was a 12day tour to the United States. Visited new york where they rolled out the red carpet. It was practically a tickertape parade, went to washington, dc, did a number of really important interviews. Who is president at that point in time, 1959 in the United States . Eisenhower, dwight eisenhower. Who was his Vice President . Richard nixon. Richard nixon was Vice President. So he is in the United States, and eisenhower, eisenhower was not totally sure exactly what to think about castro at that point. So this idea that eisenhower, in particular, right or the , administration at that time was pushing castro toward the soviets not eisenhower, at the very least not eisenhower. He is not exactly sure. You can look online and watch eisenhower interviewed about this. There was an old series done by Abc Television in the 1960s called the eagle and the bear where eisenhower is talking about, some people thought that 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, april 17, 1959. His cia director, allen dulles, was not exactly sure how to respond to this either. Eisenhower, eisenhower was bothered by the fact that he had read about how castro and che in particular dealt with opponents. And you guys are reading this in your articles on che guevara, very brutal. And this bothered him. Eisenhower, eisenhower was not any intense firebreathing anticommunist. He did not like mccarthy. He did not like joe mccarthy. I think was James Burnham of the National Review who said, made a kind of 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. All right 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 himself, so he delegated the Vice President , Richard Nixon, to meet with castro. This was april 19, 1959. This was probably the single in fact 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 that eisenhower picked next and is he was impressed with how nixon handled the alger hess case. And how fair nixon had dealt with that. So nixon met with him. He wrote a memo that for a long time was classified. There were four or five main recipients, and distribution was limited to allen dulles of the cia, the state department christian herder, John Foster Dulles at the state department, mike mansfield, who was probably the top latin america expert in the senate. Nixon said this about castro, they meet for two and half hours. 2. 5 hours oneonone. Nixon wrote this in the memo, castro is either incredibly naive about communism or he is under communist discipline. My own appraisal of him as a man is mixed. Whatever we may think of him, he is going to be a great factor in the development of cuba and very possibly in Latin American Affairs generally. 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 communism. I have already applied his ideas of how to run a government or an economy are less developed than those of all most any world figure i have met in 50 countries. 50 countries. Also when he is in washington, he was on meet the press, which was around even way back then. Lawrence spivak was the host, spivak asked castro this question. I want to know where your heart lies in the struggle between communism and democracy . Castros answer, 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. What happened in november 1960 . President ial election, right . Between one of our guys, nixon, and kennedy. Vice president Richard Nixon and john f. Kennedy. Kennedy was an intense anticommunist, all the kennedys were. His father, his brother, robert f. Kennedy. In fact they were supporters of joe mccarthy. Bobby kennedy, who became attorney general under his brother, actually worked for mccarthy. Mccarthy, mccarthy is godfather to rfks oldest daughter. Mccarthy dated one of the kennedy girls. He had been at the Kennedy Compound in 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. Nixon 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. It is called six crises, which is a great book, really, really good. So what did they do . Nixon and kennedy had a bunch of debates, right . Radio television. , what is the general assessment, who won the debate . What is the common take on this . [indiscernible] kennedy won the Television Debate and that nixon won the radio. Paul exactly. People who listened to it on the radio said nixon won, and people who watched on tv said kennedy won. 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 distance, much less spell it out. Under no circumstances could it be disclosed or even alluded to. By the way, nixon and kennedy were buddies, they were old friends. Nixon visited kennedy on kennedys deathbed, one of the numerous times in kennedys life when he received last rites of the church, at least a halfdozen times. It is so ironic that he was shot november 1963. He was only 46 years old, if even that, i did my math right. He was already very sick with all kinds of disease and all kinds of health problems. But they were old friends. So he wants to tell kennedy hey, jack, i want castro out too. But we have this plan, we have got this covert plan to get rid of him, but i cannot act on it. The old man does not want to act on it. Kennedy wins the election november 1960. At this point, 1959, not so much but 1960, 1961, 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, 1960, that it looks like castro was moving toward a communist, prosoviet government. Among these, his brother, raul, whom we knew i had a friend who did this intelligence work. We knew raul castro was attending soviet world youth festivals prior to this. In fact, we thought that raul was even more of a communist ideologue than fidel was. At that point. They also had che guevara as part of part of their group. , i have a whole bunch on che that i will probably hit the next class. You guys are going to read up on him. But he and fidel met in mexico city, argentinian revolutionary, born like in 1928, died 1967, who referred to the United States as the great enemy of mankind. Che guevara hated the United States, absolutely hated the United States. 1960, castros nationalizing property throughout cuba. We now have all sorts of documentation on this, and we have had it for decades actually. In february, 1960, we know that macoyan, one of the top leaders in the soviet government, had visited cuba at that point. This is from sergei khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the soviet union. Sergei would become his biographer. By october 12, 1959, 1959, this is sergei, by october 12, alexander top soviet official, a was already made with check guevara 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 that 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. You got it ready . , january 3, 1961. January 3, 1961. 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, ike is still president. Right . Jfk is inaugurated a couple of weeks later around january 17, january 20, 1961. So jfk comes into office, and he finds out he is trying to figure out what to do with castro, wants to get rid of castro, and finds out the previous ministration had developed a covert action plan to overthrow fidel. What is this called . What does this become known as . Bay of pigs. Bay of pigs. So that is the bay of pigs invasion, april 17, 1961. Which is almost exactly two years to the day that castro gave that interview to Lawrence Spivak on meet the press, met with nixon for two and half hours, spoke at the National Press club. So kennedy decides to act on 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 the bay of pigs, but we want to get to the cuban missile crisis. Altogether, this was a group, somewhere around 1000, 1100, 1200, maybe as high as 1400 cuban exiles who wanted to overthrow the castro government. And they were supported and trained by the United States. The idea here was that they would invade cuba at this particular spot, and there would be a series of airstrikes by u. S. Forces. And 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 kind of join in with them. Here comes a group to help them overthrow fidel. Right . Here they come, here are 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. It was, bay of pigs, known as, 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 would meet with Nikita Khrushchev the , soviet leader at geneva in june of 1961, and he was interviewed by James Scotty Reston of the New York Times, the reporter said, how did it go . Kennedy said, it was awful, the worst moment of my life. Khrushchev rolled right over me. He thinks i weak. Am think about this. The previous president have been eisenhower. Eisenhower organized the normandy landing, the Supreme Commander in world war ii. The first unanimous allied commander of nato, eisenhower, a world war ii hero. Mcarthur. N, 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, this playboy who had been bought into office in 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 officials said, we just looked at this and shook 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 . From florida . It is like 100 miles, probably like 70 miles from key west. So close that you could swim from cuba to the United States, right . Actually people have done it. Most people have not made it. But a lot of people have tried it. So the bay of pigs failed. That again, that is april 1961. Possiblethe very worst thing happened that we were really, really afraid of. This makes cuba even a closer ally of the soviet union. What we feared the most is not only that cuba will be an ally of the soviet union, but that the soviet union will place not just military advisers there, not just military equipment there, but what . Nuclear weapons. That would be a catastrophe. Because at that point it probably took soviet missiles fired at the United States about 18 minutes to get there, firing them from soviet territory. And 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 how close to washington, dc . I mean you have cut delivery , time from 18 minutes to a few minutes. So this changes the entire strategic calculus with all the competition with the soviet union. So the one thing you cannot have if they were communists, that would be that enough, but the one thing you cannot have is Nuclear Missiles there. Cannot let soviet Nuclear Missiles there. So, we start setting u2 spy planes doing reconnaissance, gliding way high up in the sky over the top of cuba, taking pictures. And then one day, october 14, 1962 october 14, 1962, a u. S. Spy plane discovered that the soviets were building missile bases in cuba. One of the the things that really threw 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, maybe older than that, 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 in a kind of like 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. And then later we figured out that no, this was just standard bureaucratic procedure. The soviet Missiles Division or 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. They just do them the way they did them and czechoslovakia. In czechoslovakia. This confounded our guys who thought they must want us to see them. Nope. Just bureaucracy soviet , bureaucracy, that is the way they arranged them. Ok, so there it is. There is the nightmare. The nightmare comes true. And jfk called in one of the soviet diplomatic officials in washington and asked him, asked him pointblank, are you guys placing Nuclear Missiles in cuba . The guy was shocked jfk new and just said no, lied to him 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. Right . What in the world are we going to do about this . He meets with his military advisors, jfk and political advisors. He and his brother bobby, rfk, spend a lot of time on this. And there is debates. Some people want military action to take out the soviet missile sites, especially because, and this is really important, think about this, we 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 theyre armed. And then we will not be able to take them out. Then we will be in a blackmail scenario. We will be in a situation where they could hit us with live Nuclear Weapons. Rfk and others really counseled against that. Said, i dont want my brother to be a tojo in reverse, a pearl harbor in reverse where we do a preemptive strike on cuba and we start the war. Didnt want that to happen. Jfk also said, and if i do that, i will probably be killing russians. And if we kill russians, where does that lead to . Where does that go to . So he decides instead on what . Anyone know . What is the word . A quarantine. Paul a quarantine. Good job and you got the right word too. It is typically called an embargo. People say he did an embargo. He did not want to do an embargo because an embargo could be considered an act of aggression and an act of war. Usede phrase that kennedy was that they were going to quarantine cuba. Which is, so kind of cut off the perimeter at least as much as they could with u. S. Boats. And any boats that would be coming into cuba, including from the soviet union, the United States would reserve the right, or at least try to assert the right, to try to board the ships to see if there were soviet Nuclear Warheads on there. He gives, he knows that he has to tell the American Public about this. Because this is a really, really big deal. The headline,m, president embargoes cuba. Kennedy said great, thanks. It gives a nationally televised speech on october 22. That is a big deal. October 22. At that point, this is usually referred to as 13 days. Right, the infamous for 13 days of october. There have been films and documentaries, films called 13 days. Days of crisis. Kennedy announces he is going to be getting a major speech on television. The New York Times knew about it. In fact i think it is that old , eagle and the bear 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. And the soviets said kennedy said that is right. You know what im going to do about it . No, we dont know. 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. And i should type this up for you guys. I usually write it on the chalkboard. Of course i write it on the chalkboard, you cant read it anyway, it is not legible. Kennedy tells america, it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any Nuclear Missile launched from cuba ok, so it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any Nuclear Missile launched from cuba this is 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 we respond . This will require a full retaliatory response upon the soviet union. So this makes you wonder, george ball and others in the Kennedy Administration would later say, i do not know if we early understood the full implications of what were doing here. Think about, this commits us. Right . If you have what happens if iave a renegade in cuba will talk about che guevara in a what if somebody in cuba, even second. By accident, launch a Nuclear Missile that has some other country somewhere in the western hemisphere, and kennedy saying it will be interpreted as an attack by the soviet union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the soviet union. Which would mean what . So missiles from cuba would hit whatever country in the western hemisphere. Then we would nuke 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 . I mean, you could have a dozen missiles in the air, just after the first round. Assuming if at 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, i mean, 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 other places. 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. Which is, so again you think kennedy is committing us to , something pretty major. On the other hand, think about it this way. 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 give you guys a handout. Do you have the handout . This is an interview, pbs newshour, that was done in 2001. And it is wonderful. You have Terrence Smith of pbs newshour 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 other than in fact at this he knew this better point than anybody living. Because jfk was gone, rfk was gone. Rfk was assassinated, just like his brother, assassinated in 1968. Also interviewed here is keith payne. Keith payneiewing and robert mcnamara. Terrence smith, robert mcnamara. Terrence smith, robert mcnamara. Keith payne says here, i think one of the most important messages regarding the cuban missile crisis is that on the other side, there may be ideological zealots in control. He is talking here about fidel and che. What is interesting is what was going on on the other side. We now know what was going on was that castro and che guevara were recommending to Nikita Khrushchev that they actually use the Nuclear 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 the United States. Now that is payne. Now mcnamara jumps in, right, may i . We are talking about here the film 13 days. Mcnamara. The film shows correctly on saturday night, the 27th of october, a critical moment, the 27th of october in 1962. The majority of kennedys military and civilian advisers were prepared to recommend attack. At the time the cia said they do did not believe there were any Nuclear Warheads there for the missiles. It was not until 30 years later we learned there were 162 warheads there. Wow. Tactical nuke. I love the phrase, tactical, you know what tactical does . 90 for the incoming and 60 for the missiles targeted on the u. S. Which would, as was properly said, would have killed, killed, killed 80 million americans. That is just killed. Forget about casualties, people with other problems, radiation, cancer. That is just from those missiles there. No response. If those are all fired, the United States is going to fire on 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 . The you know how many died in world war ii . Like 300,000. Terrence smith says to mcnamara, and 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. It is one of the reasons i like reading this interview because this is good inside information from the primary sources. He said, 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. Number did you know the warheads one, were there . Two, if you did, would you recommend they were used . Three, 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 would have been totally destroyed. He said you and kennedy would , have done the same thing in the case of the u. S. By the way, no, they would not. Smith, he saw no other way out. Mcnamara, listen to this religious language. No, castro wouldve pulled the temple down on his head. Pulled the temple down on his head. Then keith payne adds, let me follow up on that because che guevara said he was ready for martyrdom, and for cuba as a country to be national martyrdom. And 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 as a tshirt. This guy wanted to nuke the United States. He said to the cubans, we see your 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. So on one side you have the soviets who were very deterrable in the circumstances. On the other you have some ideological and political zealots beyond deterrence in that case. That is exactly right. That is where they stood. So how did this end . By the way, here is 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. How did this end, who ended it . Who do we have to give a lot of credit to here . Nikita khrushchev, the soviet leader. It is it one of the only times, ladies and gentlemen, paul kengor will compliment soviet. Khrushchev said these guys are nuts. Maybe i imagine we will have progressives in the United States who will rave about how wonderful castros cuba is with Free Health Care and education and che guevara, but these guys are insane. These guys are complete the completely insane. His son, sergei, who is one of his major biographers, did a major three volume biography of him. Sergei said this, that he had to inform moscow as quickly as possible. Fidel. He had to inform moscow as quickly as possible of his decision to sacrifice cuba. Let them be aware as they direct drew up their plans that cuba was ready to perish for the sake of victory. The soviet ambassador alexiev , that guy who met with them back in 1959, was so stunned, as he listened to castro, castros words. Again sergeis words. When he heard castro countenance a first strike in the United States, alexiev stood speechless, 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. Alexiev, writes sergei 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, a farewell. Fidel was ready to go, to go up in a giant Mushroom Cloud, for marxism. So khrushchev, as khrushchev found this out, he immediately called a late sunday night meeting in moscow at the kremlin. The soviet leader did with his advisers. They met in the code room of the soviet foreign ministry. And khrushchev ordered immediately, exact words, remove quickly ase them as possible, get the missiles out of there. Because these two guys are nuts. Get the missiles out of there. Khrushchev now felt he had common cause with kennedy and the United States. They would eventually implement the hotline, the red line after this. He told foreign minister andre grymyko, we now have a common cause to save the world from those pushing us towards war. That would be fidel and che, hero to Many AmericanCollege Students. Not in this room. As for fidel castro, he was furious. At nikita. Castro was mortally offended why . Because he had not managed to engage in a fight with the americans. He made up his mind to die a hero and have it end that way. He now considered Nikita Khrushchev a traitor. A traitor. But to khrushchevs great credit, again, he got them out of there. This is one last quote from sergeis memoirs. I think we got about five minutes left in class and then i , will take questions. If you guys have questions. Sergei writes, fidel did not realize the consequences. It seems to castro that if the soviet union struck the first blow. For the sake of this Bright Future castro resolved , unhesitatingly to sacrifice martyr antional , international martyr to communism. Cuba would perish, yes, but socialism would be victorious. Perhaps it was for this, 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. Alexiev guessed at castros sacrificial resolve, but he did not realize how far it had gone. Cuba was ready to perish for the sake of victory. All right, so just to close this down, it ends when khrushchev sends a couple of 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, where which called on the United States to remove missiles from turkey. And kennedys public response was 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 a very, very complicated thing. But they secretly agreed, on the United States, to remove missiles from turkey, but not publicly say that, which soviet officials saw as a giant loss, and embarrassment to khrushchev. They also saw the whole thing as embarrassment to khrushchev. Because khrushchev put missiles there in order to gain a big advantage over the United States, not realizing he was dealing with two ideological psychopaths in cuba who could have launched nuclear armageddon. So khrushchev for this and other reasons is pressured out of office. This is pretty wild. Khrushchev is the only soviet leader to walk out of office. All of the others died in office. One of the reasons was that humiliation over the cuban missile crisis. All right. I think we are just about every time. Out of time. Any questions from anybody . Yes. I will go in the back first and then tim. Were the people of cuba really aware of their leaders decisions to sacrifice the whole nations . And if they were, was the military strong and oppressive against the people . Paul 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 really knew what was going on. I doubt they had i dont think they had any idea how bad it was. Many of them up to that point had been close allies with United States, because we had such a Good Relationship cuba. Sure one of the , wonderful things, if 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 thanksgiving break and talked to her family about all of this. And her uncle told her that, no, 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 nuclear armageddon. After waiting and waiting and waiting, he finally asked me to marry him. People thought, you will be surprised when you talk to your grandparents, 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 . Well you never asked. ,but people people thought this , was the big one. The big one. Tim . What about the impact on the local level, when you had, for example there was soviet submarines with nuclear tipped warheads [indiscernible] that almost took out a u. S. Convoy . What about the impact of those on the local level . Paul made there in cuba . No, on the military side [indiscernible] local military commanders. Paul yeah. No, i mean i do not know what to say, except, that would be very significant. In fact they were we were sending huge amounts of military troops down 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 railroad tracks, and they are just by the thousands military guys coming in here. What is going on . Why is all of this military coming into florida . That was one of the things that tipped off the times. They knew something was going on that was very, very serious. Yes . [indiscernible] a great deal of fear with north korea. They are not quite as close as monster as cuba. Paul yes, 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, do you do a preemptive strike . And if you do in north korea, what would that be of . At least in cuba, we knew cuba up and down. We had 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 , we dont even know where they are, if 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. But the case here that is really troubling is, here you had two fanatics, fidel and che, who were ready for international martyrdom, to sacrifice cuba for the cause of communism, which freaked out even the soviets. [laughter] they just could not believe it. These guys in cuba are not good guys. They are bad guys. Maybe that is a good place to stop. Ok. All right. Thanks, guys. I will see you on wednesday. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] announcer 1 you can watch lectures in history every weekend on American History tv. 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