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Vol. 80/No. 39 October 17, 2016
(Books of the Month column)
Oct. 1962: How Cuba blocked US threat of
nuclear attack
October 1962: The ‘Missile’ Crisis as Seen From Cuba by Tomás Diez
Acosta is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for October. The
excerpt below is from the preface to the English-language edition by
Socialist Workers Party leader Mary-Alice Waters. This month marks the
54th anniversary of these momentous events, told for the first time from
the perspective of the Cuban people and their revolutionary government
that pushed Washington back from the precipice of nuclear war. Copyright
© 2002 by Tomás Diez Acosta, Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY MARY-ALICE WATERS
In October 1962, during what is widely known as the Cuban Missile
Crisis, Washington pushed the world to the precipice of nuclear war.
Scores of books on the subject have been written by partisans of
Washington and of Moscow. Here, for the first time, the story of that
historic moment is told in full from the perspective of the central
protagonist, the Cuban people and their revolutionary government.
The author, Tomás Diez Acosta, joined the ranks of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Cuba in 1961 as a literacy worker, one of the three
hundred thousand young Cubans who mobilized to the mountains, factories,
fields, barrios, barracks, and fishing villages during Cuba’s Year of
Education to teach every Cuban how to read and write. He was fourteen
years old. In the midst of an exploding revolutionary struggle there was
no “minimum age” for combatants, Diez says with a laugh. When he retired
from active military service thirty-seven years later he held the rank
of lieutenant colonel. … Diez details:
• the determination and readiness of Cuba’s working people to defend the
country’s newly won sovereignty and the achievements of their unfolding
socialist revolution against the increasingly aggressive designs of U.S.
imperialism, including the full-scale bombing and invasion it was
preparing during the October Crisis;
• the decision by Cuba’s revolutionary leadership to allow Soviet
missiles to be stationed on the island, not because they thought such
weapons were needed to defend Cuba from U.S. military assault, but as an
act of international solidarity as the USSR was being ringed by U.S.
strategic nuclear arms;
• the carrying out of Operation Anadyr, the code name for the eventual
deployment of some 42,000 Soviet troops and missile units in Cuba
between August and November 1962;
• the day-by-day unfolding of what Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto
Che Guevara called the “brilliant yet sad days” of the October Crisis,
and the course followed by the revolutionary government as it worked
simultaneously to defend Cuba’s sovereignty and move Washington back
from the brink. …
On April 19, 1961, after fewer than seventy-two hours of hard-fought
combat, the Cuban armed forces, national militias, revolutionary police,
and fledgling air force had dealt a stunning defeat to a U.S.-trained,
-organized, and -financed mercenary invasion force of some 1,500 at
Playa Girón close by the Bay of Pigs on Cuba’s southern coast. From that
day on, as the pages that follow amply attest, U.S. policy makers at the
highest levels acted on the conclusion that the revolutionary government
of Cuba could be overthrown only by direct U.S. military action. And
they marshaled seemingly limitless resources to prepare for that moment.
Under the personal guidance of the president’s brother, Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy, “Operation Mongoose,” with its multifaceted plans for
sabotage, subversion, and assassination of Cuba’s revolutionary leaders,
was unleashed to pave the way. …
Kennedy’s acceptance of Khrushchev’s offer to withdraw the missiles — an
offer broadcast worldwide over Radio Moscow without even informing the
Cuban government — was how the stand-down of the two strategic nuclear
powers was announced. But it was the armed mobilization and political
clarity of the Cuban people, and the capacities of their revolutionary
leadership, that stayed Washington’s hand, saving humanity from the
consequences of a nuclear holocaust.
Divergent political courses pursued by the Cuban and Soviet governments
marked each step. The Soviet leadership, seeking a way to enhance its
strategic military position and to counter the Jupiter missiles the U.S.
had recently installed in Turkey and Italy, insisted on secrecy and
attempted deception. Cuba took the moral high ground, arguing from the
beginning for the public announcement of the mutual assistance pact and
the right of the Cuban people to defend themselves against U.S. aggression.
The defeat of the invasion force at the Bay of Pigs had bought precious
time for Cuba to organize, train, and equip its Revolutionary Armed
Forces. Even more decisive, the people of Cuba used that time to
consolidate the agrarian reform; win the battle of the literacy
campaign; build schools, homes, and hospitals; extend electrification;
advance social equality among Cuba’s working people; and strengthen the
worker-farmer alliance that was the bedrock of the revolution and of the
respect Cuba had earned among the world’s toilers. As they navigated the
contradictory dialectic of the greatly appreciated aid they received
from the USSR, the Cuban people were not only defending themselves
against the Yankee predator. They stood for the future of humanity, as
they stood down the power of U.S. imperialism.
And despite all odds they prevailed.
On October 26, at a decisive moment in the unfolding crisis, John F.
Kennedy asked the Pentagon for an estimate of the U.S. casualties that
would be incurred during the invasion they were weighing. He was
informed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff expected 18,500 casualties in
the first ten days alone—greater than the casualties U.S. troops would
suffer in the entire first five years of fighting in Vietnam. And
knowledgeable Cuban military personnel say U.S. casualties would have
been far greater. From that moment on, Kennedy turned White House
strategists away from their well-advanced plans to use U.S. military
forces in an attempt to overthrow the revolution. The political price
such body counts would entail continues to this day to hold off any
direct U.S. military attack against Cuba.
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