Nuclear time clock during cuban missle crisis

NUCLEAR TIME CLOCK DURING CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS FREE

Khrushchev said: 'Tell him it is to save the Cuban revolution.' Deploying Soviet missiles in Cuba would prejudice this strategy. I said Fidel's strategy to defend the revolution was based on the growing solidarity of world public opinion for Cuba. 'I said immediately that Fidel would not accept it. Alexander Alexeyev, how will Fidel react when we present him with our decision?' I don't want it known in the US until November (after the mid-term Congressional elections). Khrushchev said, in effect: 'Comrades, I think it would be a good idea to instal rockets in Cuba. 'On I was called to a meeting of the Defence Council at the Kremlin. He told us his version in Moscow earlier this year. The best witness on Khrushchev's motives is probably Alexander Alexeyev, the Soviet ambassador in Cuba at the time and a personal friend of Castro. They need only 10 minutes to reach our cities, but our rockets need 25 minutes to reach America.' Khrushchev thought for a while and then said: 'Why don't we instal our rockets in Cuba and point them at the Americans? Then we'll need only 10 minutes, too.' They went for a walk and Malinovsky pointed in the direction of Turkey and said: 'That's where the American rockets are pointing at us. 'Khrushchev and his Defence Minister, Rodion Malinovsky, were at Khrushchev's estate on the Black Sea. General Boris Surikov, a missile expert, told us the following story: The world was actually on the brink of a nuclear holocaust in which the first strikes alone would have wiped out 500 million people.Д«ut a more convincing explanation is that Khrushchev was only continuing a policy conceived by Stalin: that every opportunity should be taken to shock the Americans into accepting the Soviet Union as an equal in the nuclear age. THOSE leaders who took part in the Cuban missile crisis who are still alive now agree that at the time they greatly underestimated the danger.

That, in essence, is the received version of the Cuban missile crisis.

NUCLEAR TIME CLOCK DURING CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS FREE

The free world hailed President Kennedy as a hero who, in an eyeball-to- eyeball confrontation with the Communists, had made Khrushchev blink. Then, at the last minute, Khrushchev backed down, the Soviet ships reversed course, and within weeks all missile sites on Cuba were demolished. Khrushchev ordered his ships and their submarine escorts to sail straight through the American fleet and told Soviet forces to resist any US landing. Kennedy imposed a naval blockade to stop Soviet ships (right) carrying the missiles from reaching Cuba, and prepared to invade the island. This was contrary to Khrushchev's assurances that Soviet military aid to the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, was solely for defence against any US invasion. John F Kennedy accused the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, of planning to put nuclear missiles on the island - 100 miles from the American mainland. Photographs taken by an American U-2 spy plane over western Cuba on 14 October revealed a missile launching ramp under construction. Thirty years ago this month, the Cuban missile crisis raised the spectre of nuclear war.

Nuclear time clock during cuban missle crisis