When Republican President, Dwight D.Eisenhower was sworn in 1953 there was change of power and American policies. It was however noticed that some foreign policies were retained for the benefit and protection of the state. Operation Solarium was launched during this new governance to protect the Americans from foreign intervention especially from the communist states like Cuba.
Operation Solarium
The perspectives of United States in the war in the Soviet Union were removal of the missiles and atomic bombs that were directed to its states from Cuba. Apart from that but it also wanted to end or reduce the communism control in the Soviet Union states starting from Cuba. In Cuba, it aimed at President Fidel Castro as the main proponent of the communism in the Soviet Union.
In 1953, the Soviet Union leader, Joseph Stalin died and his former right-hand man Nikita Khrushchev was appointed to be the first secretary of the communist party. He was later named the premier of the Union in 1958. Then this book shows us how Khrushchev used his power as the new premier to direct the Soviet Union from the inception of the Cuban revolution. The premier decided to support the Castro governance from being overthrown by the US by giving it the fire arms to fight the Americans. He also involved in agreements to defend Cuba from invasion.
Castro was scared of the invasion of the Americans. Between 1960-1961, there was four anticipated invasions in Cuba. Castro was advised by Khrushchev to accept the nuclear missiles to be put in its soil to acts as a deterrent measure to the invasion. There was this discrepancy between the Soviet Union and U.S ICBM that Khrushchev was too concerned to close its gap. Thus by the Cuban authority agreeing to accept the nuclear missiles project in its soil could allow Khrushchev to close that gap.
Khrushchev saw it that those missiles being in Cuba could force the US to reconsider the Jupiter missiles it had put in Turkey to attack the Soviet Union. He made the nuclear deployment decision in Cuba and it was approved by the presidium. Meanwhile, due to internal pressures Castro drifted attention fro Moscow for assistance to fight Americans as the US’s administration continued with its plan to test nuclear.
Upon the congressional elections in 1962, Khrushchev made a visit US in order to personally convince President Kennedy about the missiles in turkey before the ones in Cuba are detected by Americans. This is because the Russian military and Khrushchev himself were scared that ones the missile plans in Cuba are detected by the Americans being operational they could be concealed by the America’s U-2reconnaissance flights. But President Kennedy was against the presence of the Soviet Union military in Cuba and that is why it was difficult to accept Khrushchev’s ideas.
Unfortunately the Americans detected the nuclear missiles in Cuba and its ExComm secret deliberations of how to respond. The United States’ secretary of defense Robert ruled for the limited air strike in Cuba to destroy the missiles. The JFK supported the new development and it later became greatest proponent of the Jupiter project in Turkey. Behind the back there were negotiations involving president Kennedy’s brother, Robert Kennedy and the soviet military intelligence officer Georgi Bolshalkov there was exaggerated information of the possible Cuba invasion from the secret negotiations.
The Soviet Union is also said to have thought that President Kennedy had no pressure from the military over the air strike which was wrong. On the other hand the United States policy makers had a misconception that Khrushchev was working under pressure from the Soviet Union hard-liners to attack US. During this time of this crisis the weakness of the intelligence (soviet intelligence) was realized since it allowed the US intelligence to detect the missiles before their operation was due. On the other hand the Russians had a perspective of indirectly attacking United States through the controversial crisis in Cuba and the Soviet Union. Then it offered its nuclear missiles and bombs to be installed in Cuba under its operations. It was to give the orders when to attack the US.
Meanwhile the Russian government had to accept questionable information’s on how Khrushchev could keep such missiles in Cuba without any plan to wage a war. The missiles were sourced from Russia. Khrushchev now wrote through the presidium to President Kennedy promising to remove the missiles in Cuba so that the Americans should not strike Cuba. He later wrote his own letter declaring the stand taken by Bolshakov and Kennedy’s close friend Charles Bartlett and the journalist Frank Holeman. This was accompanied by the second letter in October 27 which was dictated by Khrushchev himself at a meeting with the presidium calling for the end of removal of missiles in Cuba. This brought settlement which saw the American president Kennedy promising Bolshakov that the missiles in Turkey were to be removed in a period of four to five months. Khrushchev was heavily criticized of favoring the US in the negotiations as US did not promise not to attack Cuba.
The soviet military commander, Issa Pliyev did not know where, how and when to use the nuclear missile he was deploying in Cuba. It was until 27th October 1960 that he received an order from Moscow detailing him not use the nuclear missiles anywhere without the authority from Moscow. But he disobeyed the order from Moscow and fired a SA-2 rocket, destroying a U-2 plane that had Captain Rudolf Anderson. It’s with fortunate that the US president did not opt for retaliation. But instead he pushed the removal of all offensive missile weapons in Cuba including the I1-28 bombers.
Meanwhile Khrushchev was arrested as Fide Castro rejected the UN inspection of the removal of the bombers and the missiles from its soils. It was later revealed how Khrushchev contributed the assassination of President Kennedy through his role he played when the US wanted to strike Cuba. At the same time it’s said that Cuba contributed to the downfall of Khrushchev’s leadership in the Soviet Union and the humiliation of the Union itself.
Crisis Between US and Cuba
Cuba was chosen to be the vocal point due its access to most of the continental states in United States. It was also close to the sea waters which could allow easy movement of the nuclear missiles during installation from other Soviet Union countries into Cuba. It could also allow easy movement of to militaries during the times of operation Further there was this developing crisis between us and Cuba when US wanted to overthrow its regime. This was seen to be the sweet revenge for the Cuban on the US
President Kennedy could not allow the nuclear missiles in Cuba. This was because Cuba was at a strategic place to most of it continental states. Any war strike in its soil could claim a lot of damages to property and people. Early attempts by the United States to overthrow the communist regime in Cuba had aggravated Fidel Castro. So he could the nuclear missiles in its soil to begin attacks in US even without the consent of the Soviet Union. This is what happened at the end when the soviet commander, Issa Pliyev decides to blow the missiles after being ordered not to do so without Moscow authority. But he strikes the U-2 plane simply because of the grievances he had towards US. A gain the president wanted to fight communism and bad governance in Cuba which was to be a blow incase the weapons were placed in Cuba.
The presence of the weapons in Cuba could have a greater impact on the international treaties .Its presence in Cuba could escalate world peace as the communism status in Cuba could gain more power to reject America’s demands in various agreements concerning peace. America’s quest for democracy in Cuba would hit a snag. Russia on the other hand could have gained more influence on the region through its massive weapons.
America’s influence in signing of treaties such as economic, political treaties could have reduced. In terms of leadership of the free world, communism would spread widely while US’s democratic ideologies could find its way out of the market. As a result man countries were to find their way to one-man leadership as was in Cuba under Fidel Castro.
The escalated hostilities that led to the missile crisis in Cuba had its origin from the USSR and Cuba itself. The two countries had been in a crisis over leadership in Cuba. Russia should not have joined in the crisis in favor of Cuba. Americans wanted to save the Cubans from the seeds of bad governance that was as a result of communism. President Castro was infringing the democratic rights of its people in the name of communism. He was a one life-time president who could silent anybody against him. Nobody could question his governance as he was the final person. The Soviet Union through its premier, Khrushchev joined Castro to fight the Americans. It’s at this point that the Russians are under blame for supplying the nuclear missiles to the Soviet Union in Cuba. The Soviet Union member states had no ability of producing these nuclear missiles. So had it not been for the support of Russians, the missile crisis would not have been there in Cuba.
The Russians on the other hand wanted to prove to the Americans that they also have weapons of mass destruction to cause damage in America and gain world control. They then saw the Cuba crisis being a fertile ground to prove its power over the Americans. As a result, it offered to support the Soviet Union crisis with weapons, thereby facilitating the grievances. Thus it was because of the US’s stance aggression towards Cuba and USSR that breaded that to missile crisis.
Fidel Castro had all the determination to retain power. He knew very well that all the attempts to overthrow him could be suicidal if they were to succeed. He was to lose his power and probably face court cases over the abuse of power. The wave of communism was to lose it tastes in the world and America could win its dominance. Thus he sought the support of the Soviet Union in order to retain his power in Cuba. He had to retain the power at all costs in order to minimize the dominance of American ideologies in the region.
The most important of all was the combination of the Soviet Union and Fidel Castro that saw Castro retaining power. The Soviet Union wanted to extend its dominance in the region over the Americans and spread communism to these states. Thus on seeing the American invasion in Cuba to overthrow Castro, it was like the beginning of the end of the Union’s mandate of propagating communism. To avoid such consequences, it had to join Castro in order to maximize its fame. So besides Castro’s effort to retain control and power, the Soviet Union also played a key role in this war.