The Cuban missile crisis; WHAT IF?

[Thumper Bill]

Fifty years have passed by since the Cuban missile crisis occured.
The big question is what would the world be like now if the crisis had not been averted?
Would countries that were not involved become new super powers?
Would any form of civilisation exist in the West?
Could a similar set of circumstances occur again some time in the future?
If this was a distinct possibility, what would you do or not do as the case may be?
I can remember this crisis quite clearly and it was an awfull and beastly time to exist.

 

[ert47]

I reckon, if the UK infrastructure and economy was intact,we would have had more Pacers in the UK.

What a living hell that would be.

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On a more serious note, if WW3 ensued, I'd say that Europe as we now know it would probably not exist. Tensions that could arise between East and West Germany could destabilize the area.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Fifty years have passed by since the Cuban missile crisis occurred. I can remember this crisis quite clearly and it was an awful and beastly time to exist.

I was at Manchester University at the time and I agree that the final time before the Russian ships stopped heading for Cuba had most of us wondering if any day would have been our last on earth.

Britain was definitely on the Russian list of "countries to be attacked by nuclear weapons".

 

[Cable Car]

Was always a bit bemused to who were the good and bad guys back then.
Living in a country (Scotland) were Christmas had only become a public holiday since 1958, were everybody i knew used an outside toilet and we were all it seemed, poor as church mice.
Still we had freedom.
No money to go anywhere but we definitely had freedom.
As for nukes going off, then goodnight to most of Europe.
And we'd still be living in poverty.
Those of us still living.

ps, the Christmas thing was because our betters went off on a Puritan phase, sadly it lasted until Cliff Richard arrived.

 

[Bungle73]

I'm glad to say this all happened a long, long time before I was born (does that make you all feel old? ).

Was there ever a real chance of something really bad happening, or was it just everyone panicking over something that was never likely to happen?

 

[ainsworth74]

Was there ever a real chance of something really bad happening, or was it just everyone panicking over something that was never likely to happen?

I think JFK is the only one that really knew the answer to that question. Would he have really given the order for the US Navy to open fire on the Soviet cargo ships (knowing where that would lead)? I'm not sure anyone knows other than him.

Certainly there must have been a perception amongst the leadership of both the USA and USSR that war was very close, because both superpowers took a deep breath and step back in the aftermath of the crisis. It's the aftermath of this crisis that marked the beginning of the road to the period Détente in the 1970s, with things like the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty and most importantly the famous 'Hot Line' between Moscow and Washington.

But like I said the one person that knew for sure if it would lead to war will have been JFK so I guess unless he wrote a secret unpublished note about it we'll never know for sure if he'd have gone to war over Cuba.

Of course Cuba isn't the only time that NATO and the USSR came close to war, it's just the most famous.

 

[LE Greys]

I'm glad to say this all happened a long, long time before I was born (does that make you all feel old? ).

Me, too!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I think JFK is the only one that really knew the answer to that question. Would he have really given the order for the US Navy to open fire on the Soviet cargo ships (knowing where that would lead)? I'm not sure anyone knows other than him.

Certainly there must have been a perception amongst the leadership of both the USA and USSR that war was very close, because both superpowers took a deep breath and step back in the aftermath of the crisis. It's the aftermath of this crisis that marked the beginning of the road to the period Détente in the 1970s, with things like the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty and most importantly the famous 'Hot Line' between Moscow and Washington.

But like I said the one person that knew for sure if it would lead to war will have been JFK so I guess unless he wrote a secret unpublished note about it we'll never know for sure if he'd have gone to war over Cuba.

Of course Cuba isn't the only time that NATO and the USSR came close to war, it's just the most famous.

One of the others I can think of sounds remarkably similar to the film War Games. Apparently, a Soviet radar system accidentally ran a training programme, so up on the screens appeared several traces that looked just like incoming warheads targeted on Strategic Rocket Forces bases. Immediately, everyone sprang into action. Luckily, SRF Command realised that it was one report coming from one station, unconfirmed by all the others, and simply told them to reset their systems. The 'warheads' disappeared from the screens, and a few words over the Hotline sorted it all out. (Anyone remember 'Where the hell is Belgium!?)

OK, another situation springs to mind. What if the Cuban bases had been complete when they were discovered? With a fait accompli presented to them, the US would be completely stuck. They could either negotiate for the missiles to be removed by offering to remove their own from Turkey, or just learn to live with them. It would make the world a much tenser place for a while.

 

[ainsworth74]

Apparently, a Soviet radar system accidentally ran a training programme, so up on the screens appeared several traces that looked just like incoming warheads targeted on Strategic Rocket Forces bases. Immediately, everyone sprang into action. Luckily, SRF Command realised that it was one report coming from one station, unconfirmed by all the others, and simply told them to reset their systems. The 'warheads' disappeared from the screens, and a few words over the Hotline sorted it all out.

That's one of the ones I was thinking about. There's also the incident post-USSR where a Norwegian rocket test was detected by Russian radars and initially thought to be Trident SLBM heading for Moscow. That one got as far as the nuclear 'suitcase' being brought to president Yeltsin before it was determined to be a false alarm. Or back to the Cold War, there's Abel Archer 83 a NATO exercise that the Soviets thought was a build up to war causing them to, for real (NATO was only doing it on paper), take steps to launch a nuclear strike. The situation only resolved itself when the exercise ended.

Edit: Appropriately enough for this conversation according to the Royal Navy Facebook page HMS Vigilant test fired a Trident missile earlier.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Don't forget the Korean Air Lines 747 that was shot down in 1983; that raised a lot of tension berween the USA and the USSR.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Was there ever a real chance of something really bad happening, or was it just everyone panicking over something that was never likely to happen?

Of course there was. The evidence is in the extravagance, the wasteful extravagance, expended in the defensive measures. The bunkers in a grid across the land, equipped and regularly re-stocked with provisions; the immune communications equipment; the counter measures; the survival plans - they were not manipulative scare-mongering!

The popular story was based on the Nagasaki and Hiroshimo bombs multiplied to reflect the power and number of actual weapons deployed.
There was no sense of the threat being related to demonised 'others' which our culture has since institutionalised (though the US tried hard to equate Communisim with irresponsible agression), it was everywhere. I learned how to design and build a viable nuclear weapon at school and I'm sure thousands or more were doing so elsewhere at the time. (I was able to earn from that knowledge when we were constructing our AGR power stations!). That all created a general sense of fear of annihilation; and it was not unfounded. It also led to the widespread anti-nuclear weapon lobby (eg CND) which may have included many with more emotive than informed understanding, but they did have some influence.

Could a similar set of circumstances occur again some time in the future?

Surely.

What impresses me now is our resilience to such acute threats to our own existence; whatever the facts, whatever the behaviours, whatever the re-descriptions of history - we survived.

 

[Jonny]

Well, it would most likely have been goodnight Vienna - and goodnight to most of the northern hemisphere for that matter - under the mushroom cloud, with the southern hemisphere getting killed by the fallout.