In 1955, there was a movie in the United States, "Rebellion without Cause", which told the story of several bear children. In the movie, the bear children steal two classic cars and decide to play a game on the edge of the cliff: two people drive a car towards the cliff and jump out of the car before the car rushes out of the cliff. Whoever jumps down first is the coward, and the person who jumps down later is the winner of the game. In the movie, a bear child's clothes hang on the door handlebars of the car, only to rush off the cliff with the car.
In 1959, the famous British mathematical logician Russell proposed the problem of the coward's game. In English, cowards are called Chicken, so the game is called Chicken Game. When either party decides to die to the end, the rational choice of the other party is to show weakness.
Historically, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, fought the Cold War for decades. The 13 days from October 16 to October 28, 1962, were the most dangerous moments in human history. The leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union and their staff were highly tense, both sides struggling and hovering next to the nuclear weapons launch button, and a careless nuclear warhead would fill the sky, turning the whole of Eastern Europe and North America into a sea of fire and barren land. If all this happens, the earth will no longer be suitable for human existence.
Why Cuba?
Cuba has never lacked dictators, and Batista was the last president in Cuban history and an extremely pro-American dictator.
Dictatorship and pro-Americanism were not a problem, after all, cuba's leaders in those years were all of the same virtue. The point is that Batista clings to power, and his methods are still despicable and cunning. That year, Batista staged a military coup and cancelled his election to parliament. Fidel Castro has left the University of Havana and is preparing to run for congress from a lawyer. Hearing this bad news, Fidel Caster threw away his lawyer's briefcase and document bag and embarked on the road of revolution, desperately fighting with Battistan, who had ruined his future. Years later Batistak died, and the 32-year-old Castro became the supreme ruler of the Republic of Cuba.
At the time of Cuba's founding in 1959, Fidel Castro was not yet a communist, and he traveled to the United States in three months to seek loan assistance. However, Castro's hot face stuck to Eisenhower's cold ass. Since Castro's younger brother Raúl Castro and the number two figure in the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara, both joined the Communist Party, the U.S. leadership believed that the Cuban Revolution would bring communism to the Western Hemisphere. Eisenhower refused to see Castro, ran to play golf himself, and sent Vice President Richard Nixon to meet him. During the three-hour meeting, Castro talked endlessly about Cuba's difficulties, but Nixon did not talk about aid.
The hostility of the United States towards Cuba contributed to Castro's change of mind. On the one hand, the Cuban Government promulgated the Agrarian Reform Act, which nationalized the property of large United States companies and Cuban haciendarians; on the other hand, Cuba turned to the socialist camp for assistance and support, established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries and signed a series of economic agreements. Cuba's "left leaning" has torn the face of the United States. Kennedy, who came to power in January 1961, was convinced that Cuba had defected to Big Brother and saw the Castro regime as a thorn in the eye. Economically, the United States began to impose sanctions on Cuba in an attempt to force Cuba to comply by cutting off its economic lifeline. On April 16 of that year, the armed forces of Cuban exiles supported by the United States launched a surprise attack on Cuba, known as the "Bay of Pigs Incident", and three days later the Cubans completely annihilated the invaders. Under strong pressure from the United States, Castro had to turn to the Soviet Union for assistance.
In 1959, Turkey, located in Southern Europe, Italy and West Asia, took the lead in deploying the American Thor and Jupiter medium-range ballistic missiles. Bomber bases and missiles surrounded the Soviet Union, and the most important industrial areas of the Soviet Union, and even Moscow, were under the direct threat of nuclear bombs and strategic bombers. Cuba and the Soviet Union resumed diplomatic relations in 1960. After the United States broke diplomatic relations with Cuba, the Soviet Union seized the opportunity to increase its economic and military assistance to Cuba. The Soviet Union felt the need to install several nuclear missiles at the back door of the United States, and Cuba was undoubtedly the ideal strategic fulcrum (it took about half an hour to launch missiles from the Soviet mainland to the United States, while it took only 3 to 5 minutes to launch missiles from Cuba).
The course of the Cuban Missile Crisis
In May 1962, the Soviet Union formulated the Anadyr Plan and decided to deploy nuclear warhead missiles in Cuba, breaking the Soviet Convention of not deploying missiles abroad. In July 1962, Raul Castro visited the Soviet Union and signed a secret agreement with the Soviet Union for the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Cuba. Beginning in July 1962, the Soviet Union began shipping missiles and their related facilities to Cuba by vessel. The Soviets were planned to deploy 60 missiles in Cuba with ranges of about 1,000-2,000 miles, covering New York, Washington and even Canada's capital, Ottawa.
The unusual phenomenon of a large number of Soviet ships sailing towards Cuba soon attracted the attention of U.S. intelligence. Since August 1962, the United States has been conducting aerial reconnaissance of Cuba and in early August it has detected anti-aircraft missiles, coastal defense torpedo boats with missiles and a large number of military personnel.
In the early morning of October 14, a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flew over Cuba for six minutes, taking 928 photos. On the 15th, experts came up with preliminary results: three medium-range missile launch bases are under construction, and there are 21 Il-28 bombers that can carry atomic bombs. These nuclear-tipped missiles could cover all major U.S. cities except Seattle, with an alert time of only 2-3 minutes. At 8:45 a.m. on the 16th, The President's National Security Adviser, George Bundy, told Kennedy the shocking news. Three hours later, Kennedy summoned the heads of the State Department, the Department of Defense, the CIA, and other relevant departments to a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, and the thirteen days that terrified the world were counted from this time. Those who attended the meeting were later formally appointed by Kennedy as members of the National Security Council's Executive Committee, forming the core of U.S. policymaking in response to the crisis.
At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 20th, Kennedy convened a meeting of the Executive Committee at the White House, and finally 11 people favored the blockade and 6 people favored the air raid. At 7 p.m. on the 22nd, Kennedy delivered a national televised speech, telling the public about the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. He also announced a maritime quarantine for island nation Cuba to prevent more "offensive military equipment" from reaching Cuba, saying the U.S. would not end the quarantine until the Soviets removed the missiles.
Kennedy wrote a letter to Soviet leader Khrushchev: "I do not think that you, or any other sane person, would deliberately plunge the world into a war in this nuclear age, a war in which no country will be a winner and will only have disastrous consequences for the whole world, including provocateurs." ”
At 10:00 a.m. on October 24, the U.S. maritime segregation and blockade was officially launched. The U.S. Navy deployed 8 aircraft carrier battle groups, more than 120 cruisers and destroyers, and 13 nuclear submarines in the Atlantic Ocean and Cuban waters, blocking the Cuban sea. The US missile forces were also all ordered to be on "high alert," with missiles on the launch pad at the helm.
October 24: Khrushchev condemns the quarantine operation. "Mr. President, you are not announcing quarantine, but you are giving us an ultimatum threatening to use force against us if we do not give in to your demands. Think about what you're talking about! That's how you still want to convince me to agree! What does it mean to agree to these requirements? This will mean that dealing with other countries is not by reason, but by obedience to hegemonic behaviour. You don't ask why, you just want to intimidate us.
Pope John XXIII called on Kennedy and Khrushchev to be peaceful.
October 26: The U.S. military enters a state of second-degree alert. Khrushchev wrote his first letter to Kennedy, in which Khrushchev expressed his desire for peace. He proposed that if the United States gave assurances that it would not invade Cuba and would not allow others to invade, and if it withdrew its fleet and did not engage in isolation, this would change everything immediately.
In the early morning of October 27, Castro sent a telegram to the Kremlin recommending that Khrushchev be fearless and take the lead in using nuclear weapons against US imperialism, the common enemy of the socialist camp.
Just before Kennedy replied to Khrushchev's letter, the United States received a second, lengthy, official, and more explosive letter from the Soviet leader. The letter contained substantially different positions, the essence of which was to seek a mutual exchange. At a time when the Executive Committee of the National Security Council was debating fiercely and intensely about what to do and what to do, Robert Kennedy decided to ignore Khrushchev's second letter and answer only the first.
Two more events happened on the same day. A U-2 strategic reconnaissance plane of the US military reconnaissance aircraft reconnaissance over the Soviet medium-range missile position, lured the Soviet anti-aircraft missile radar to start, detect and capture radar signals. At that time, the supreme commander of the Soviet army, General Priyev, was not in the command post, the deputy commander in charge of the air defense system, Lieutenant General Stepan Grečko, gave the order to open fire without authorization, the U-2 reconnaissance plane crashed after being hit by the SAM-2 anti-aircraft missile, and the pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson, died. After the "bad news" of the U-2 being shot down in Cuba reached the US Air Force Command, the hawkish generals were furious, believing that the Soviet army openly challenged and fired the "first shot" of the Cuban crisis, and the US military absolutely could not show weakness. After the battle plan was presented to the White House, Kennedy considered it again and again, rejecting the military's air strike plan. What if the crash of the U-2 had nothing to do with Khrushchev and was just an accident? He decided to continue diplomatic efforts to postpone the day of the massive airstrikes to Tuesday, October 30.
The U.S. aircraft carrier Randolph and a battle group of 11 cruisers and destroyers desperately tracked down Soviet submarines with the hull number B-59. The destroyer Using the Kony dropped five training depth charges at the submarine B-59 hidden on the seabed, which was very lethal, but the explosion sounded like thunder, forcing it to surface and identify itself.
According to the regulations of the Soviet Navy, in a critical moment, if moscow's direct authorization cannot be obtained, the nuclear torpedo must be launched with the unanimous consent of the two supreme commanders and political commissars of the ship. The political commissar at the time, Ivan Maslennikov, was equally frightened and nervous and agreed with the launch. Fortunately, the chief of staff of the submarine formation, Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Arkhipov, who was also the first mate of the submarine, insisted on not agreeing to the launch of nuclear torpedoes, and suggested that he contact headquarters after floating, finally avoiding an imminent nuclear conflict.
When the B-59 submarine surfaced, the sea surface was illuminated by aerial flares as if it were daylight. The U.S. Navy signaled with flags: "Does your ship need help?" Savitsky ordered the raising of the Soviet flag and replied: "This submarine belongs to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, stop your provocative acts!"
In summary, Kennedy wrote on the 27th: "In my opinion, we will have to withdraw Turkey's missiles." "But this move, if made public, will make the outside world think that the United States has betrayed its allies for its own security." In order to increase the credibility of the letter, Kennedy also sent his brother, Federal Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to privately carry a message to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, and the United States would consider solving the problem of Turkish missiles. Of course, the Turkish issue is secretive and if made public, the United States will not recognize it.
On October 28, the 13th day of the crisis, secret diplomatic negotiations finally succeeded. Khrushchev announced his agreement to withdraw Cuban missiles. The United States agreed not to invade Cuba and secretly withdrew Turkish missiles. Radio Moscow broadcast Khrushchev's reply.
Kennedy immediately issued a statement saying that Khrushchev had made "a statesmanial decision and made an important and positive contribution to peace." ”
The Cuban Missile Crisis made the Soviet Union more aware of the gap between its own military power and the United States. Therefore, during Brezhnev's administration, his specific military strategic thinking was to prepare for both nuclear and conventional wars, both limited nuclear wars and local conventional wars. The Soviet Union's military power has greatly increased, and in many ways it has left the United States behind.
The impact of the missile crisis
When the crisis is over, who is the winner? Kennedy considered it to be the United States, and he humiliated Khrushchev by warning his subordinates and journalists not to boast too publicly. Khrushchev also admitted, "For the sake of peace, we were forced to make some big concessions. But he also stressed: "We got assurances from Kennedy that neither the United States nor its allies would be allowed to invade Cuba, and this was a great victory for us." In other words, the strategic purpose of the SOVIET Union was achieved.
The peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis was a victory for rational decision-making and the result of mutual compromise between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union withdrew Cuban missiles, the United States withdrew Turkish missiles, Cuba gained security ... A crisis that could destroy humanity passed.