J. F. KENNEDY and JRD in the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
This summary was precipitated by a segment of “Man, Moment, Machine” on the History Channel; “JFK and the Crisis Crusader”. The machine star is the F8 Crusader, the first plane able to break the sound barrier while climbing straight up. The F-8 Crusader was built by Chance-Vought in Dallas, TX, designed with guns as a primary weapon for naval operations from aircraft carriers. The RF-8 version was developed for photo-reconnaissance and operated longer in U.S. service than any of the fighter versions. RF-8s played a crucial role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, providing essential low-level photographs impossible to acquire by other means.
Early in his first term, President Kennedy traveled to Vienna, Austria for a summit with Nikita Khrushchev. Not only was the summit unsuccessful in its goal of building trust between the two countries, but it raised tensions between the two superpowers, particularly in discussions regarding the city of Berlin. During the June 1961 Vienna summit, Khrushchev threatened Kennedy that he would sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany, effectively cutting off Allied access to West Berlin. Kennedy was startled by Khrushchev’s combative style and tone and unsettled by the premier’s threat. Khrushchev had decades of experience, including World War II in the Ukraine, and had survived Josef Stalin. Kennedy was the youngest U.S. president; his own WWII experience was on a small PT boat.
In the early morning hours of August 13, 1961, Berlin was awakened by the rumbling of heavy machinery in their streets, toward the line that divided the eastern and western parts of the city. Groggy citizens looked on as work details began digging holes and jack hammering sidewalks, clearing the way for the barbed wire that would eventually be strung across the dividing line. Armed troops manned the crossing points between the two sides and, by morning, a ring of soviet troops surrounded the city. In one night, the freedom to pass between the two sections of Berlin had been abruptly halted. Running through cemeteries and along canals, zigzagging through the city streets, the Berlin Wall was the tangible result of a showdown between two competing ideologies in the post-WWII world.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States regarding the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The missiles were ostensibly placed to protect Cuba from further planned attacks by the United States after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion April 15-19, 1961. That invasion was partially funded by the U.S. Gov’t to support Cuban exiles’ attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. If the landing force had attained a beachhead, a de facto Cuban civil war would ensue, worthy of direct U.S. direct support. No landing was successful by lasting 24 hours. This action accelerated a rapid deterioration in Cuban-American relations, which encouraged the Soviet Union to strengthen the support of Castro.
In the summer of 1962, the Soviet Union dispatched a fleet of commercial cargo ships filled with nuclear missiles, launchers and anti-aircraft guns--all under false manifests--across the Atlantic Ocean to Fidel Castro's Cuba. Forty thousand Soviet soldiers and technicians began clandestinely erecting an extensive array of armed missile sites, and aiming their nuclear-tipped medium range ballistic missiles at the United States. The SS-4 Sandal MRBM could launch a three-megaton warhead to an estimated range of 1,020 nautical miles that could reach targets as far away as Washington, D.C., Dallas, or the Panama Canal.
The missiles emplaced in Cuba endangered all U.S. foreign policy because such a presence, left unchallenged, would effectively signal to the Kremlin, Western allies, wavering neutrals, and the American people, that the President would not uphold publicly-stated vital interests to a threat at the country's "doorstep." There was also a domestic risk; President Kennedy was acutely aware of his administration's failed Bay of Pigs invasion and how it was playing out at home. Especially after his previous public pronouncements that the United States would never accept nuclear missiles in Cuba, giving in to Soviet demands now, with an election not far away, Kennedy knew, could e politically fatal. Nikita Khruschev and his key military advisors thought that the missiles would remain unnoticed until November, and then he planned to suddenly reveal them to the United States as a fait accompli.
I (J R Degenfelder) was in the 123rd Maintenance Battalion of the First Armored Division at Ft Hood, TX, which was armored division (ROAD – Re-Organized Armored Division) to have three brigades that could function independently; thus requiring combined maintenance services. The First AD was increased from brigade strength in early 1961 to full strength, was issued older M48 tanks, with many inexperienced officers. In testing the ROAD concept, we had numerous war games at Ft Hood, witnessed by brass from the Pentagon, e.g. General Earle Wheeler, chief of staff.
October 14: U2 flights at 70,000 ft detected missles sites in Cuba in a ‘Star of David’ configuration, six local missile sites defending a central silo. SS-4 Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) sites are found in varying stages of readiness.
October 15: Monday morning a team of photo-interpreters make the crucial findings of Russian offensive missiles in Cuba..
October 16: further U2 flights detected two medium-range sites, with launch equipment above ground.
President Kennedy is informed and secretly convenes a group of advisers, later known as the Executive Committee or the National Security Council, or "EXCOM."
Executive Committee (EXCOM) of the National Security Council and the President. Received all source intelligence reports and recommended options for various courses of action to the President.
EXCOM
President Kennedy (45 years old)
Robert Kennedy: Attorney General
Lyndon Johnson: Vice President
Roswell Gilpatrick: Deputy Secretary of Defense
General Maxwell Taylor: Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
John A. McCone: DCI
McGeorge Bundy: National Security Assistant to the President
Robert McNamara: Secretary of Defense
Dean Rusk: Secretary of State
U. Alexis Johnson: Under Secretary of State
Douglas Dillon: Secretary of Treasury
George Ball: Deputy Secretary of State
Ted Sorenson: Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to the President
Adlai Stevenson: U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
October 17: Options and Courses of Action (COAs) developed, and later refined.
COA 1: Do Nothing.
Advocated initially by Bundy but changed his mind the next day. Primary concern was over anticipated Soviet reprisals against Berlin. JFK felt that this COA would risk our alliances and our country long term.
COA 2: Diplomatic Pressures:
Advocated by Bohlen and Thompson. Proposed a secret ultimatum to Khrushchev demanding a removal of the missiles without a public confrontation or military action. Also advocated by Adlai Stevenson, who proposed an OAS Summit. Would guarantee demands for U.S. concessions. Echoes of appeasement.
COA 3: A Secret Approach to Castro.
"Split or Fall." EXCOM COA quickly rejected because they didn't believe Castro could be tempted by the offer to divorce himself from Soviet Union. Also the missiles were under Soviet Control.
COA 4: Invasion.
Joint Chiefs of Staff advocated an invasion. Ultimately considered a last resort. Contingency plans had been made and practiced. Would force American troops to confront Soviet troops in the Cold War's first case of direct combat between ground forces of the superpowers. Risked disaster, including an equivalent Soviet move against Berlin.
COA 5: Air Strike.
Deemed far cleaner than an invasion. Remove the missiles before they were operational. JFK would make a public statement to the nation and to the Soviets as the planes approached their targets, describing his reasons and warning Moscow against retaliation. JFK leaned toward this option at the outset and remained tempted by it. Bundy and Acheson advocated a narrower, more surgical strike
COA 6: Blockade.
First raised by McNamara on October 16th. Became more attractive as the President and his advisors dissected other alternatives. Sharpened into the blockade and ultimatum approach. (Ultimatum approach was Bohlen's). Advocated by McCone and Robert Kennedy.
Source: Graham Allison's The Essence of Decision
October 18: When the President demands that Cuba be completely covered by U-2 photography, four additional MRBM sites and three IRBM sites are found. President Kennedy meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Llewellyn Thompson on October 18. Gromyko strongly emphasizes that the missiles being installed in Cuba are for defensive purposes only, given the Bay of Pigs invasion the previous year. Kennedy knows that Gromyko is lying, but does not disclose his knowledge gained from the U2 flights.
October 19: President Kennedy returns to Washington. The findings of the previous day prompt the President to cancel his campaign trip to Chicago and head back to Washington. Reporters are told the President is suffering from a cold.
October 20: The plan of action is set by EXCOM.
October 21: After long session with his military advisors, Kennedy decides to blockade Cuba as a way to prevent the Soviet nuclear warheads from arriving and mounting on the intermediate range missiles. Feeling that he had been misled by the senior military staff re the Bay of Pigs, he relies heavily on Robert Kennedy, Attorney General, and the only senior official even younger than the president.
Because a blockade is a clear act of war, the effort is called a quarantine, extending up to 500 miles around the Cuban island. Allies of the U.S. are notified.
October 22: At noon all U.S. military is put on full alert. The Cuban missile crisis is made public by President Kennedy in a nationally televised address at 7pm. Given the events of the last week, unshakeable evidence of offensive weapons is needed on that imprisoned island. Kennedy’s policy is that the launch of a missile is an attack on the U.S. by the Soviet Union, and the same for a launch against any other country, making it a hemispheric event. Low-altitude reconnaissance flights maintain close surveillance of Soviet activity on the island, adding a new dimension to reporting and allowing detailed analysis of military activity.
October 23: Kennedy authorizes low-level recon flights to get incontrovertible evidence. Now the RF8 Crusaders, based in Key West, FL come into play. Three teams of two planes each are assigned three sites where the U2 flights had indicated missile activity. At 10:05 AM they take off and cross the Florida Straight 100 ft above the water at a speed just under 500 mph. The first teams are spotted just before reaching the Cuban shore, and densely packed Cuban and Russian antiaircraft batteries open up.
They take their pictures and are back to home base by noon.
In an unprecedented display of hemispheric solidarity, the Organization of American States (OAS) approves the U.S. quarantine. At 7:03 PM, the President signs the quarantine proclamation, "Interdiction of the Delivery of Offensive Weapons to Cuba."
October 24: At 10:00AM President Kenendy is briefed on the results of RF8 flights. Adlai Stevenson is briefed at the UN. The quarantine goes into effect at 10 AM EDT.
October 25: Confrontation at the UN. On Thursday evening, October 25, in response to a challenge by Soviet Ambassador Zorin, Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, presents to the Security Council the hard photographic evidence of Russian deployment of MRBMs and IRBMs in Cuba. Zorin is left speechless as the now-famous detailed photos are shown.
October 26: The Crisis Deepens. At 6:00 PM EDT U.S. destroyers stop, board and inspect the Marcula, a dry-cargo ship of neutral registry sailing under Soviet charter to Cuba. Khrushchev sends a secret note to Fidel Castro that the missiles will be withdrawn if the U.S. promises not to invade Cuba.
October 27: (Black Saturday): At 9 AM EDT, Khrushchev publicly proposes a settlement that would include removal of U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey. At the height of the crisis, U.S. Air Force Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr., piloting a U-2, is brought down by a Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile. Low-altitude pilots report that they are being fired on by Cuban anti-aircraft weapons. All of the MRBM sites are now considered capable of launching missiles. Assembly of Il-28 Beagle light jet bombers are also continuing. The climax of the crisis comes after an ultimatum was given to the Soviets that the missiles must be removed. The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy are prepared to strike Soviet bases in Cuba, and the U.S. Army and U.S. Marines are positioned to invade the island. At 7:45 PM EDT, Robert Kennedy meets with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. He emphasizes the urgency of a settlement and reaches an understanding regarding the Jupiter missiles in Turkey.
October 28: On Sunday, in a message to President Kennedy broadcast over Radio Moscow at 9 AM EDT, Premier Khrushchev agrees to remove "the weapons which you describe as offensive" in return for assurances that the U.S. will not invade Cuba.
October 29: The beginning of negotiations to flesh out public deal.
October 30: UN Secretary General U Thant goes to Cuba.
November 1: The missiles are removed from Cuba. The MRBMs are hurriedly loaded as deck cargo. Inspections are also made at sea.
Note by JRD: This space records (in 2007) my recollections after being placed on the advance party. While still at Ft Hood, I was talking to Mr Lee, a W3 maintenance officer in one of the tank battalions. He thought invading Cuba was great, if at least one shot was fired. Then he could write off any deficiencies to wartime action. All of the warrant officers, mostly bachelors, were rarin’ to go.
When I flew from Temple, TX to Savannah, it was on a used DC6 in which “American Airlines” on the tail was painted over, but still readable. Our first taxi was aborted by warning lights.
Camp Stewart had little regular activity; the enlisted men in invasion force lived in tents with coal-fired heaters, similar to those used in the American Civil War. The Officers’ Club, with 27 camp officers, were quickly overwhelmed and out-ranked by the advance party. The Club did great business at a “Casino Carnival” on Saturday night. The warrant officers were reckless bidders in poker. I was just coming out of the Club lavatory when the door opened, and in strode a tall handsome officer, with 6” x 6” medals field on his chest, stars on the collar, and a name tag that read “Abrams”, all viewed in a second. I must have looked startled, so he stretched out his hand and introduced himself.
The head of the invasion force was Lt General Creighton Abrams, revered by the other officers. {He later in Viet Nam (after Gen Westmoreland) devised the winning strategy, of protected hamlets, but the American people were fed up by then.) When I returned and reported to Capt. Cherry that I had shaken hands with Abrams, he was tremendously impressed. (Capt Cherry was different, previously being an E8 in Infantry who won a field commission to Captain, then switched two weeks later to Ordnance, and then took over our company.)
I don’t remember much about the invasion planning. My first impression was how detailed the photographs were of the invasion beach, and then I thought; we should be able to get good pictures. I was still a 2nd Lt, and the next lowest officer was a Lt Colonel. They wanted to use the M88 tank retriever to take out expected underwater tank traps, so I had to explain Archimedes principle to them, and the fact that the M88 had only half-inch armor. It seemed that they were-re-fighting the Normandy Landing of World War II; I doubted that Cuba had any tank traps.
We had limited news, with no access to newspapers, and were planning to invade if the missiles were not removed. My vivid memory was a visit by President Kennedy, after the full invasion force was assembled. I was in the front rank as Kennedy reviewed the troops from his Lincoln Continental convertible. It was a special shock a year later, when I worked in Texas, to see him assassinated in that same convertible. JRD
General Conclusion: The records now available to us demonstrate that once Kennedy and Khrushchev had sorted out their national interests and saw the collision course they both were set on, that stark realization, followed by lucid rationality steered both nations away from the brink of mutually assured destruction. The Cuban Missile Crisis is often regarded as the moment when the Cold War came closest to escalating into a nuclear war. Russians refer to the event as the "Caribbean Crisis," while Cubans refer to it as the "October Crisis."
My conclusion is different, based on Khrushchev’s aggressive record. When a military commissar under Stalin, he supported Stalin’s purges in the Ukraine, and a couple years later was the political intermediary between Stalin and and Marshal Georgy Zhukov in the defense of Stalingrad. When he was Premier and out-voted 7 to 4 in the Politboro, he said: “My four votes are worth more than your seven”, and retained power. He was aggressive at a time when the Soviet Union was near its peak strength, although far short of the U.S. in nuclear weapons. (The irony is that Senator Jack Kennedy’s main them in the 1960 campaign was the “missile gap” for the U.S. compared to the Soviet Union. As President he learned that the U.S. had 2.5x more nuclear missiles than Russia.)
By placing some nuclear weapons just outside the U.S., Khrushchev would offset that weakness. In the end game, he got a promise that the U.S. would never invade Cuba, which was to last for a half century. Militarily, there was no way that he could win so far from his own power sphere, but he got a draw. JRD
Epilogue #1:
Oct. 20, 2006 -- The SS-4 Sandal (Russian designation R-12U) was a Soviet-made medium-range ballistic missile that could deliver a megaton-class nuclear warhead to a range of up to 2,000 miles. It could be launched from either soft launch pads or hard silos. Most silo-launch complexes of R-12U missiles had four launchers and was designated as "Dvina." They were deployed to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis and, by Oct. 19, reconnaissance pilots had confirmed four "Dvina" sites were operational.
The pictures taken Oct. 14, 1962, by a U-2 Dragonlady confirmed the worst: an SS-4 Sandal (Soviet designation: R-12 Dvina) medium-range ballistic missile site was under construction near San Cristobal, Cuba. Two days later, those photos were shown to President John F. Kennedy. Three days later, more U-2 flights had confirmed four MRBM sites were operational. The Cuban Missile Crisis was on and Bolling was ground zero.
Following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban government responded by borrowing a page from the American diplomacy catalog: nuclear deterrence. The Soviet Union, unhappy with the U.S. placing deployable nuclear warheads in England, Italy and Turkey (literally, on the Soviet Union's doorstep), was happy to provide Fidel Castro's communist regime with the missiles and personnel necessary to support such an overture.
The distance between the MRBM sites in Cuba and Bolling was less than 30 minutes as the Sandal flies, but at this point in history, the information on the missiles' existence is kept secret and only 14 key members of the Executive Committee, also known as ExComm, know the whole story. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, then chief of staff of the Air Force, was an adviser to ExComm and knew well the capabilities present at Bolling AFB and their helicopter squadrons, having lived on base from July 1957 to July 1961.
The runway at Bolling had closed July 1, 1962, but the flight line was still active, supporting H-21 "Workhorse" (sometimes called the "Flying Banana"), dual-rotor helicopters. Visionaries within the Defense Department had been creating tactics and techniques for rapid insertion and extraction of troops via helicopter. Bolling had adapted its flying mission to support helicopters since they also did not conflict with Washington National Airport's airspace. During the course of this week, the decision was made: the helicopters at Bolling would support the mass exodus of military leaders from the National Capital Region to safe areas.
Air Force leaders who lived at Bolling but worked elsewhere in the city were deep in thrall of minute-by-minute briefings and updates. The Bolling Officers Wives' Club took shifts where a member would drive by the helicopter flight pad every hour. If the helicopters were all gone, it would mean the exodus had begun and the nation was at war.
Elsewhere in the Air Force, bomber aircrews were on alert. Security forces personnel were on watch to ensure Soviet Spetsnaz (Soviet special operations that used guerrilla tactics for military gain), would not enter U.S. military bases. The world media began to notice that something was happening.
On Oct. 22, President Kennedy told to the American people in a televised address about the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. He also announced that a naval blockade of 500 miles had been established around the Cuban coastline. Any nuclear missile attack from Cuba, he said, would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union and would be responded to accordingly. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev sent letters to Kennedy Oct. 23 and 24, stating the missiles were intended to be deterrents to any more invasions and the Soviet Union had no militant intentions, but the die was cast. The missiles were there and they had to be removed.
On Oct. 25, U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson addressed the U.N. Security Council. He tried to force an answer from his Soviet counterpart to either confirm or deny the existence of nuclear missiles in Cuba. "Don't wait for the translation!" Ambassador Stevenson shouted as Valerian Zorin stalled over an answer. When Zorin denied their existence, Stevenson produced the U-2 photographs proving the truth. The majority of the nations of the world were behind the United States.
The following day, the Soviet Union offered to withdraw the missiles in return for a promise from President Kennedy that the U.S. would not invade Cuba or support an invasion by any other nation or entity. But less than 24 hours later, that offer was modified: the Soviets wanted the Jupiter missiles near Izmir, Turkey withdrawn. As Soviet merchant ships neared the quarantine and U-2 pilots came under fire over both Cuban and Soviet airspace, war looked imminent. The helicopters at Bolling, kept on 24-hour alert since Oct. 15, were ready to accomplish their most important mission ever.
President Kennedy publicly accepted the original deal and privately accepted the second, promising to withdraw the 15 Jupiters within six months, this second compromise kept hidden so as not to weaken the leaders in their positions in their countries, although Khrushchev's acceptance of this deal eventually weakened his own position. The Cuban Missile Crisis (called the "Caribbean Crisis" by the Russians) became a great embarrassment for Khrushchev because, in the eyes of the world, it looked like he gave in to the U.S. without achieving any strategic goals. He was deposed from party leadership in 1964.
With the missiles no longer in Cuba, President Kennedy ordered an end to the quarantine of Cuba Nov. 20, 1962.
by Andy Stephens 11th Wing Historian
Key Sources:
John Fenzel, Thirteen Day in October: The Cuban Missile Crisis www.squidoo.com/cubanmissilecrisis/
John F. Kennedy Library archives www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/JFK+in+History/Cuban+Missile+Crisis.htm
See also “Photo-Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis” at www.unf.edu/dept/scholar-programs/ospreyjournal2005/bejger.pdf
Compiled January 18, 2007, Joseph Degenfelder
cc: Pauline Degenfelder, Eric J. Degenfelder, Curtis E. Degenfelder
“History is measured as the span of a grandfather’s memory to his grandchildren.”
Epilogue #2a
This section added October 19, 2012 consists of three sections: an interview of Nikita Khrushchev in December 1963, J R Degenfelder’s visit to Moscow in September 1992, with Pauline in September 1993, and an account of a Chinese takeover of a Soviet island in the Amur River.
Notes on a 1963 Visit with KHRUSHCHEV
Norman Cousins, Saturday Review, November 7, 1964
Excerpt
This was my second meeting with Mr. Khrushchev in four months. In December 1962, the trip to Moscow was concerned with religious matters. I was acting in behalf of church leaders who felt the time might be opportune for exploring the possibilities of enlarged religious freedoms inside the Soviet Union. In particular, the object of the mission was to obtain the release of Bishop Slipyi, head of the Ukrainian Rite Orthodox Church. Bishop Slipyi had been interned for seventeen years.
On that previous visit, we had three hours together in his office in the Kremlin. He was relaxed, optimistic, confident. But now, in April 1963, he seemed somewhat weighted down, even withdrawn. I couldn't be sure, but he seemed to be under considerable pressure.
Understandably so. Many things had happened to change the atmosphere since December. The Chinese had been exploiting the Russian missile withdrawal from Cuba, charging that Nikita Khrushchev was guilty of appeasing the imperialistic Americans. They claimed he had demonstrated his unfitness to lead the world revolutionary movement and that he had no real desire to overthrow or defeat the capitalist West, preferring to coexist with the very forces Marx and Lenin said must be violently overthrown. In return, Nikita Khrushchev had asserted that appeasement was in no way involved. He said the missiles had been installed in Cuba because of the possibility of an American invasion. Once the invasion threat was removed, there was no need to keep missiles there. At any rate, he had said that a nuclear holocaust over Cuba had been averted: this was the important thing. Anyone who knew anything about atomic weapons, he had declared, knew there was no alternative to peaceful coexistence. He had charged that the Chinese were absolutists who were attempting to use ideological dogma in places and situations where it didn't fit.
Even so, as the result of Cuba, it seemed clear that Nikita Khrushchev felt compelled to prove he was not an appeaser. He could try to do this either by being tough and militant, or by producing evidence that his coexistence policies were yielding results.
It was evident, just after Cuba, that he had decided in favor of the latter course. He was apparently confident he could conclude an early agreement with the United States banning nuclear tests, thus proving the practical wisdom of his policies. But the hoped-for agreement had become stalled over the question of inspection, and there was mounting uneasiness inside Mr. Khrushchev's own inner councils about the effect of this impasse on the situation inside the Communist world. The Chinese had pounced upon this failure, referring to it as yet another example of Khrushchev's ineptness. Some of Khrushchev's own advisers began to stress the need for unity inside the Communist world. They wanted to set reasonable limits to the differences between the two countries.
It was not at all surprising, therefore, that Mr. Khrushchev should seem preoccupied at Gagra. He had two critically important events coming up in rapid succession—the Plenum of the Communist Party and the confrontation with the Chinese. Either one called for important leadership decisions and actions. The combination of both would put him to the severest test since coming to office. He had come to Cagra before when he had serious problems to think through; this time the totality of his policies was involved.
http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1964nov07-00016
Epilogue # 2b
In April 1992 I was asked to be a strategic consultant by the new President/CEO of Nanophase Technologies, Inc (Darien, IL), the leader in the first ‘nanotech’ wave. Their process consisted of atomizing solid metal, instantly oxidized into a plasma that was condensed to a nano-powder. To counter a Japanese patent on a similar process, I made three trips to Russia in July, September and December 1992. The Soviet Union had imploded in August 1991 when Boris Yeltsin, then Mayor of Moscow, had climbed atop a tank in front of the Russian parliament (White House’) to defy a coup by hardliners opposing Mikhail Gorbachev reforms.
My Russian hosts were pleased with the democracy that had finally come to Russia. In September 1992, with my hosts, I visited a research institute outside Moscow that produced ceramic powders for Russian missiles and jet engines. In their courtyard was a large wooden crate, 10ft wide x 8ft high x 30 ft long; the wood was weathered. I asked what it contained. The answer was that it contained special equipment to ship to Cuba in 1985, but in that year the Soviet Union withdrew its support for Fidel Castro, so the crate was still in the yard seven years later.
In that time I was supporting a World War II Veteran who was Chairman of the American Economic Foundation. That included a meeting in NYC with my Cornell Chem E 1960 classmate and room-mate at Camp Stewart, GA in the 1962 Missile Crisis. We ended up leading an expedition to Moscow, Minsk and St Petersburg in September 1-4, 1993. Our young Russian film crew started to take a video of the armed guards posted around the White House, which I vetoed since we were civilians. The evening of September 3 a mob attacked the Radio Tower in protest, while I was in Balashikha, a suburb. During that raid a Texas friend was staying at the Moscova Hotel overlooking Red Square; his story follows.
A friend had given me tour of an enormous television transmission tower, under the government company Asonkana, which was several hundred feet tall. When I left the tower and arrived at the Moscova, I was met by another Russian friend, very excited. I asked what was the matter, and he replied that the leaders of parliament had openly rebelled, with rebel factions forming, and the country probably was in civil war. One hour after we left the tower the rebels attacked, had blown up some of its electronics equipment, and killed 15 people, including two Americans. I called the American Embassy to ask what to do; they advised to stay in the hotel. We awoke the next morning to the sound of machine-gun fire, and howitzers being fired. The embassy confirmed that civil war had broken out around their building. I advised that I was on the twelfth floor, and could see the events. I hung up and in thirty seconds answered another call: “My Name is Mr. Sierra and I’m with the CIA. I want you to give me a situation report on exactly what you can see.” So I told them the rebels where trying to get into the Kremlin. (The howitzers referenced were actually tank cannon.)
That day, under Yeltsin’s orders, a line of Russian tanks lined up and commenced heavy shelling of the White House, which ended independent legislative action in Russia. On December 31, 1999 Yeltsin unexpectedly turned over the government to an Acting President, an obscure ex-Lt Colonel in the KGB; you know the story of Vladimir Putin since then.
Epilogue #2c
During the Boxer Rebellion in China (1896-1900), there were clashes with Russia over control of the Amur River. By July 1900 Russian Cossacks had destroyed all Chinese posts on the Amur and then captured Saghalien and Augun in China. The General Governor of Amur decided to annex the right bank of the Amur River, but was vetoed by the Russian Minister of War.
By the time of Russian missiles in Cuba, Sino-Soviet relations had degraded, resulting in tensions along the Amur River. The dispute was settled in 1964, but because of remarks by Mao Zedong in July 1964, the agreement was canceled by an angry Nikita Khrushchev.
On March 2, 1969 Chinese troops ambushed Soviet border guards on Zhenbao Island in the Amur River, causing 59 dead. For the next two weeks the Soviets tried to retrieve their four secret T-62 tanks, and were unsuccessful. The Wiki account says; “On March 15, 1969, the Chinese troops were repelled from Zhenbao Island (Damansky Island) with significant losses…..”
What actually happened was that the Russians, after repeated request for the Chinese to withdraw, dropped concentrated cluster bombs on them, killing about 25,000 (never reported in the Western press.) This account told to me by the same Texas friend who was in the Moscova Hotel in September 1993, told to him by former Russian military officers, then in their employ while building four modular refineries in Siberia.
Epilogue #3
Two Professors at the Harvard Business School in 1956 wrote an article that The Soviet Union, with its centralized economy, could never compete internationally because a great majority of its citizens did not contribute to their economy. In 1996 they published a 40-year update, proving their thesis.
On February 9, 1996 I gave a presentation to the executive MBA program at the Weatherhead School of Business, Case Western Reserve University: “Business in Developing Countries with emphasis on Russia.” It included some of my personal experiences above, contrasting them with Colombia S.A. as a developing country.
In 1987 Paul Kennedy published “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which showed that a nation could not project its military power beyond its economic base.
Gross National Product (IMF) of major powers in Pacific World War II (Trillion USD)
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2012 est
USA 521 1,025 2,775 5,770 9,916 14, 499 15, 653
Soviet Union -- 433 940 771 1,954 or Russia
Japan 44 204 1,067 3,849 4,667 5,489 5,984
China 61 92 234 1,197 5, 930 8,250
In international competitiveness over the last fifty years, The Soviet Union/Russia is a loser. Its financial position is buoyed by status as the world’s leading producer of oil. This production will always stay under Russian control, as BP discovered via its recent forced sellout of TNK to Rosneft.
I’m of the generation that, as young children, were told to clean up our plates, because of the millions of starving children in China. Some of us gave our money to missions to feed these starving children.
In 1954 my high-school research paper was: “Should Red China be admitted to the United Nations?”
I can’t remember whether I was pro or con.
In April 2008 our elder son Eric was appointed an executive for DuPont Performance Coatings Asia, based in Shanghai. Pauline and I have made three trips:
Shanghai and Bejing in December 2008;
Shanghai and Chongqing with voyage down the Yangzte River through the Three Gorges Dam;
Shanghai and Hong Kong in October 2011.
Through these visits, reading, and collecting jade, we have a sense of Chinese history for three millenniums. The startling realization is that all of modern China that we saw is less than thirty years old. Despite the stories of political corruption on national and local scale, the realization is that China is the world’s most capitalist country, esp. when compared to U.S. capitalism of the late 19th century.
The long Russian-Chinese border, peaceably shared by the leading communist companies starting in 1949, ended when Khrushchev withdrew the Soviet missiles from Cuba, the lesson of the Cousins’ interview in Epilogue #2a (above.)
China holds about a third of the U.S sovereign debt. The rest, now exceeding 75% via the Federal Reserve, is ‘held’ by U S. citizens. Each can draw their own conclusions.
Joseph Degenfelder
October 19, 2012
The 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cc; World War II veterans
Veterans with me in the Cuban Missile Crisis
Selected other veterans including Cornell classmates
Sons and daughters who accept this e-summary for their fathers or widows
Texas Friend(s) in Moscow
