Diplomacy is the art of conducting relationships (usually between states or other political entities) for gain without conflict. But what happens when foreign policy takes on a subliminal note of violence or coercion? The Cuban Missile Crisis is one of the most famous examples of such a case.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day political and military standoff between the US and the Soviet Union in October 1962.
The photos taken by a US U-2 spy plane piloted by Richard S Heyser on the 14th of October are regarded as the unofficial beginning of the conflict. The next day, the CIA further investigated the area and confirmed the building of nuclear sites. On the 16th of October, President John F. Kennedy was briefed on the U-2 findings. He summoned his group of advisors, the ExComm, to find a way to deal with the matter on the same day. This is the official start of the conflict.
President Kennedy maintained his official schedule in an attempt to not cause public
discord. He even received a visit from Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, during which he made clear, without revealing his knowledge of the missiles, that any Soviet offensive weapons brought into Cuba would have the “gravest consequences”.
On the 20th of October, the president decided on the naval quarantine around Cuba.
(Quarantine is the equivalent of blockade; however, calling it a blockade could have been interpreted as an act of war).
US citizens finally found out about the nuclear threat from Kennedy’s speech on television on the 22nd of October.
The next day came with the endorsement of the quarantine by the Organization of American States. Therefore, President Kennedy asked Soviet Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev to halt any Russian ships heading toward Cuba, in order to avoid the ignition of war between the two great powers. However, the message was met with hostility by the Soviet leader.
On the 25th, the president sent another message to Khrushchev, urging him to reconsider his course of action.
The situation grew tenser on the following day, with footage showing the accelerated construction of the missile sites. Cuban leader Fidel Castro also asked Nikita Khrushchev in a confidential letter to launch a nuclear first strike against the United States in the case of an American invasion of Cuba. The Soviet leader sent a letter to Kennedy addressing the terms of the removal of the missiles: they would only withdraw their nuclear weapons if the Americans lifted the quarantine and pledged to not invade Cuba.
Nevertheless, on the 27th of October, Khrushchev sent another letter, changing the terms of the negotiation: Russia would withdraw its missiles from Cuba if the US did the same with its missiles in Turkey. Meanwhile, an American U-2 aircraft is shot down over Cuba by a Soviet-supplied missile, killing Major Rudolph Anderson, the pilot. That evening, JFK’s brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and clarified that the US was eager to remove its nuclear weapons from Turkey, but not publicly.
President Kennedy agreed with the terms proposed by Khrushchev and the conflict ended on the 28th of October.
Now, leaving the facts aside, let me sum up and tell you the main ideas of the article: the Cuban Missile Crisis is an example of secret, coercive, and track II (non-governmental, informal, and unofficial contacts and activities between non-state actors) diplomacy. It reshaped the approach of The Soviet Union and the US on nuclear weapons, culminating in the creation of a nuclear hotline between the two superpowers.
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