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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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021389
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02138900.035
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1990-09-17
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NATION, Page 40A Near Tragedy Of ErrorsAlumni of the Cuban missile crisis review their lessons
A quarter-century ago, they played a game of nuclear chicken,
bringing the planet terrifyingly close to destruction. Last week
in Moscow, many of the same men who were involved in the Cuban
missile crisis met to discuss the confrontation. In a form of
diplomatic glasnost, senior Americans, Soviets and Cubans for the
first time traded candid observations on the drama that had the
world holding its breath for 13 perilous days in October 1962.
President John F. Kennedy's Defense Secretary Robert McNamara
and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy were among the
Americans present. The Soviets were represented by the likes of
former Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and onetime Ambassador
Anatoli Dobrynin. The Cubans were led by Politburo member Jorge
Risquet. The atmosphere, said a participant, was one of "remarkable
bonhomie." However, the meeting revealed that all three parties
acted out of basic misperceptions during the crisis. Among them:
The U.S. believed that the Soviets were planting nuclear
missiles in Cuba to counter American installation of warheads in
Turkey. But the Soviet missiles were intended, at least in part,
to neutralize the threat of a U.S. invasion of the island, which
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuba's Fidel Castro believed
to be imminent. Despite the movement of U.S. air and land forces
to the southeastern U.S. in the early fall of 1962 and the fact
that an invasion was proposed to Kennedy as a serious option (he
rejected it), McNamara insists that such an action was never in the
works. But, he added, "if I were in (the Cubans') shoes, I have no
doubt that I would have thought the same thing."
Kennedy and his advisers never knew for certain whether there
were nuclear warheads already in Cuba in October 1962. The Soviets
disclosed last week that 20 warheads were indeed on the island;
they could have been fitted within hours on missiles targeted for
Washington, New York and other major U.S. cities.
U.S. intelligence estimated that there were 10,000 Soviet and
40,000 Cuban troops on the island. Actually, the Soviets had 40,000
troops stationed there, and Cuban soldiers numbered 270,000. Had
the U.S. invaded, said McNamara, "casualties would have been more
than twice what we figured."
The Moscow conference made plain the huge pitfalls of a
superpower crisis in the nuclear age. "The horrifying extent to
which we all misunderstood what was going on," said McNamara, "is
the absolutely fundamental lesson for the future. Given what's at
stake, crises are too dangerous to manage. They must be avoided."