“As terrified as the world was in October 1962, not even the policy-makers had realized how close to disaster the situation really was. Kennedy thought that the likelihood of nuclear war was 1 in 3, but the administration did not know many things. For example, it believed that none of the missiles were in Cuba yet, and that 2-3,000 of Soviet service personnel was in place. Accordingly, they planned the air strike for the 30th, before any nuclear warheads could be installed. In 1991-92, Soviet officials revealed that 42 IRBMs were in place and fully operational. These could obliterate US cities up to the Canadian border. These sites were guarded by 47,000 Soviet combat troops. Further, 9 MRBMs were ready to be used against the Americans in case of an invasion. The Soviets had tactical nuclear weapons that the local commanders were authorized to use to repel an attack. After he learned of this in 1992, a shaken McNamara told reporters, “This is horrifying. It meant that had a US invasion been carried out. . . there was a 99 percent probability that nuclear war would have been initiated.”
That’s not the issue. The issue is control. I don’t think the Russian ceded the control of nuclear weapons to Cubans. Even if the Cubans overran the missile bases and got physical control over the missiles, they still wouldn’t have been able to launch them.
Kennedy planned the invasion of Cuba, not being aware that Cuba was in possession of tactical nukes
Links? Did Russia actually release the control of their (local) nukes to Cubans? I didn’t hear about this before.
The paper here says:
“As terrified as the world was in October 1962, not even the policy-makers had realized how close to disaster the situation really was. Kennedy thought that the likelihood of nuclear war was 1 in 3, but the administration did not know many things. For example, it believed that none of the missiles were in Cuba yet, and that 2-3,000 of Soviet service personnel was in place. Accordingly, they planned the air strike for the 30th, before any nuclear warheads could be installed. In 1991-92, Soviet officials revealed that 42 IRBMs were in place and fully operational. These could obliterate US cities up to the Canadian border. These sites were guarded by 47,000 Soviet combat troops. Further, 9 MRBMs were ready to be used against the Americans in case of an invasion. The Soviets had tactical nuclear weapons that the local commanders were authorized to use to repel an attack. After he learned of this in 1992, a shaken McNamara told reporters, “This is horrifying. It meant that had a US invasion been carried out. . . there was a 99 percent probability that nuclear war would have been initiated.”
Of course there’s no guarantee that’s accurate.
That’s not the issue. The issue is control. I don’t think the Russian ceded the control of nuclear weapons to Cubans. Even if the Cubans overran the missile bases and got physical control over the missiles, they still wouldn’t have been able to launch them.
Going by WIkipedia, that’s false.