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Miami,
Florida, 22 October 1962: A Cuban
refugee listens to President Kennedy's television address in which the
president explained the United States' position on the Cuban situation to the
American people and the world. Photo
courtesy: Bettmann/CORBIS
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On October 14,
1962, a United States Air Force U-2 plane on a photo-reconnaissance mission
captured
photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba.
President
Kennedy did not want the Soviet Union and Cuba to know that he had discovered
the missiles. He met in secret with his advisors for several days to discuss
the problem.
After many
long and difficult meetings, Kennedy
decided to place a naval blockade, or a ring of ships, around Cuba. The aim
of this "quarantine," as he called it, was to prevent the Soviets from
bringing in more military supplies. He demanded the removal of the missiles
already there and the destruction of the sites. On October 22, President
Kennedy spoke to the nation about the crisis in a televised address.
No one was
sure how
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev would respond to the naval blockade and U.S.
demands. But the leaders of both superpowers recognized the devastating
possibility of a nuclear war and publicly agreed to a deal in which the Soviets
would dismantle the weapon sites in exchange for a pledge from the United
States not to invade Cuba. In a separate deal, which remained secret for more
than twenty-five years, the United States also agreed to remove its nuclear
missiles from Turkey. Although the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba,
they escalated the building of their military arsenal; the missile crisis was
over, the arms race was not.
Another modern
standoff is over Iran, which the West accuses of pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
In a recent U.N. speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew a red
line on a cartoon bomb to illustrate that a nuclear Tehran would not be
tolerated.
"Take
Iran, which I have called a Cuban Missile Crisis in slow motion," said
Graham Allison, author of the groundbreaking study of governmental
decision-making "Essence
of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis."
"This
same process is looming on the current trajectory, inexorably, toward a
confrontation at which an American president is going to have to choose between
attacking Iran to prevent it becoming a nuclear weapons state or acquiescing
and then confronting a nuclear weapons state," Allison said.
"Kennedy's
idea would be, 'Don't let this reach the point of confrontation,'" he
added. "The risks of catastrophe are too great."
