The Duel: America and the Cold War

From the sounds of it, some of you are not quite sure what the Cold War is. And from my research online, you’re not alone. A lot of kids don’t know what it is, there doesn’t seem to be any kids books on the subject that are suitable for children. Why is this? Why do history books seem to skim over the subject?

Simple: because the Cold War wasn’t a war. Well, at least not in the sense that it was fought by soldiers, tanks and guns. It was a war that was fought by diplomats and ambassadors, by two countries trying to convince others to accept their ideologies.

The Cold War began not long after WWII. The Russians took over several of the countries that the Nazis had conquered and added it to to their kingdom- or, as they preferred to call it, the U.S.S.R. United Soviets Socialist Republic. They also took half of Germany, dividing Berlin into two parts, Eastern and Western Germany. The Russians had Eastern and the Americans were helping Western.

Russia and America: Russia (the Big Bear) and America (the Noble Eagle).

Both America and Russia were working hard to win other countries over to become like them. For America, we were trying to coax war-torn Europe to accept democracy. Russia was attempting to make Europe into a Communist continent.

Yet if you were to ask an adult what the Cold War was, this is probably the answer you’d receive: “When the world nearly ended.”

Wait a second, if the war was a political war that was all about winning over other countries to join you, then how on earth did the world nearly end?

Well, that’s the other part of the Cold War, and one of the reasons it’s skimmed over so fast. Because this event only lasted thirteen days. May I acquaint you to The Cuban Missile Crisis.

This and the building and destruction of the Berlin Wall are probably some of the most famous moments of the ongoing war on Communism. But because of the importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we’re going ot focus on that today.

The Crisis didn’t begin until October of 1962, when it was revealed that nuclear missiles had been put on Cuba by the Russians and aimed at the United States. Cuba was only 485 miles off the coast of Florida. A little too close to be comfortable there, as nuclear missiles have a range of 1,266 miles. Which means the Russians could have blown up anything between Florida and Washington D.C. Not a pleasant thought there, eh?

But the crisis really began several years before, when the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959, three years before the missile incident. At first Castro just seemed like a young guy who wanted to rule Cuba, a bit of a burr for the Americans, who kinda wanted to have Cuba as one of their own states. Then he began to become more and more threatening, as he announced he was going to align Cuba with America’s longtime enemies- the Soviet Regime. Anndddd let’s just say the Soviets were all for driving the Americans crazy, diplomatically or with weapons.

It was well known by the world that America had placed nuclear missiles in Turkey in the year 1959, and that they were aimed at Russia. Why did we do this? Well, several countries around the U.S.S.R. were afraid that their big neighbor the bear may encroach on their borders- in other words decide it was for the benefit of the other country to be taken over by the Soviets. Obviously this was not the case, but that was often the claim they made about the countries they took over, that and, “This is our sphere of influence.”

This is not to say we didn’t have some of our own ideas about getting other countries to align with us. We too, tried to play a ball game in Europe and persuade everyone to support Democracy, and when it came to Cuba, we even tried to invade it! No, we didn’t send American soldiers to do it, we asked Cuban exiles to try and take back their country. It did not go well, and it ended up with the Cuban dictator, Castro, being more riled than before. He wanted America to see him as a world power, too.

Photo taken by a spy plane that shows the troops and missile bases in Cuba.

Believe it or not, the missiles in Cuba were not discovered by us until they’d been there for a couple of weeks, and we didn’t realize they had Russian troops there either. It wasn’t until after the confrontation that we discovered that there were about 40,000 Soviet troops and that the missiles were nuclear.

When President Kennedy (Better known as JFK) found out about the missiles, he was pretty upset. How was he supposed to tell America that there were warheads aimed right at them less than five hundred miles off the coast of Florida? He knew they would panic, but he didn’t know how to get the Russians to take it away. Because what the Soviet leader Khrushchev wanted was for the Americans to retreat their support of West Berlin so the Soviets could have it. Which wouldn’t be very nice to the Germans, and certainly the rest of the world would not approve if they found out. That would make America look like they were willing to exchange someone else’s freedom for their safety, something we could not afford to do.

So it was announced to the American people that there were indeed missiles on the small Communist country. Kennedy also announced there would be a blockade around Cuba, not letting any Soviet ships or submarines come in and deliver arms and forces to the Cuban. Immediately, all over the country everyone began to do the Duck and Cover exercises. (How many of you have watched Iron Giant? Though it’s got some swear words, it’s a very good depiction of the constant fear in the Cold War- in a funny, humorous way. In one scene the main character is watching a tape at school that shows them how to duck and cover. There’s a really funny song that goes along with it. I’ll post it at the end of this.) Though few people knew it at the time, the government leaders knew the truth: duck and cover would not work if a nuclear missile was fired. Nothing would be left.

It was a scary thirteen days as the American President and Soviet dictator negotiated, argued and tried to figure out how to avoid nuclear war. The Soviets said they’d fire the missiles if America a) tried to invade, b) bombed the missile base, c) fired their missiles from Turkey. They also said the blockade against Cuba was enough to make them want to fire their nuclear warheads at us. We said we’d retaliate if they fired with our nuclear missiles. In other words, if the Russians tried to fire on us, we’d fire on them, resulting in the first ever nuclear war. Which pretty much means the entire world would have been blown up and unlivable. Yeah, not good.

A newspaper that headlined the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

What ended the Crisis was when President Kennedy made a secret deal with Leader Khrushchev. He told him that if he withdrew the missiles from Cuba, we’d withdraw the missiles from Turkey. Believe it or not, even though Khrushchev was a dictator, he really didn’t want to go to war with us. He wanted to make Russia look big and threatening and scary, (the big bear, as Russia was called) but he didn’t want to blow up the world. So he agreed to the deal and withdrew the missiles.

Our history books may seem to skim over this important (and very scary) time in history, but there is a reason: how do you tell in a few short pages everything that happened those thirteen days? I didn’t even began to touch on the subject, there’s so much more to cover- submarines, a blockade, a plane that went down, another plane that flew over Russia by accident, a close call between a Soviet and American vessel, etc.

The fact is, if you want to know more about the Cold War you’re going to have to research it. Even though it wasn’t a war, it’s something everyone needs to know about, so we can avoid it as much as possible in the future. Though the Crisis was only a small fragment of the many years of the Cold War, it is still known as the ultimate showdown from those years.

Little Known Fact: Most people (and this may include your parents and grandparents) don’t realize how close a little Soviet submarine named B-59 came to starting World War Three. The Captain of the sub, a man named Vitali Grigorievitch Savitsky, panicked when he couldn’t reach Moscow. He was surrounded by American warships in the caribbean ocean, who’d warned him if he tried to go to Cuba they’d blow him up. Captain Vitali thought that war had begun with America and that’s why Moscow wasn’t answering, so he ordered his nuclear missile to be fired. On a submarine, not only do you have to have the Captain’s consent to fire, you must get a “yes” from the political officer and from the sub-flotilla commander. From Wikipedia: The three primary officers on board – Captain Valentin Savitsky, the political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and entire-sub-flotilla commander Vasili Arkhipov, who was equal in rank to Savitsky and also second-in-command of B-59 – were authorized to launch the torpedo only if they all agreed unanimously to do so. But Arkhipov alone opposed the launch and eventually persuaded Savitsky to surface the submarine and await orders from Moscow. This presumably averted nuclear warfare which would likely have ensued had the torpedo been fired.

Thanks to sub-flotilla commander Vasili, we are all here today because he refused to let that missile be fired!

Today in History: Well, it appears today (the 8th) was a busy day for the world! Here’s what I dug up from different sources:

- Algeria admitted as 109th member of UN

- North Korea reports 100% election turnout, miraculously 100% vote for the Workers' Party (Communist party)

- Spiegel scandal: Der Spiegel publishes the article "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ("Conditionally prepared for defense") about a NATO manoeuver called "Fallex 62", which uncovered the sorry state of the Bundeswehr (Germany's army) facing the communist threat from the east at the time. The magazine was soon accused of treason.

Come back next week when Marin and I find ourselves in hot water out in the Atlantic!