{"id":249434,"date":"2022-02-18T15:31:19","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T20:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=249434"},"modified":"2022-02-21T12:16:01","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T17:16:01","slug":"60-years-is-nothing-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/in-plain-words\/60-years-is-nothing-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"60 years is nothing (III)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although the Missile Crisis is an event archived and analyzed from all angles, it is still a subject for existing and future stereotypes.<\/span><\/p>\n

A calendar is enough to verify that between October 22, when JFK denounced the presence of the missiles and the deployment of forces and the air-naval blockade began, and November 20, when the U.S. armed forces received the order to move from Defcon 3 to normal alert level, 29 days had gone by, not 13 as stated.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than 13 days<\/b><\/p>\n

This thing with the duration would not be very important, if it were not for the fact that the myth of the 13 days reinforces the idea that the crisis was a struggle between two leaders, and was sealed as soon as they reached an agreement. It leaves out that the danger of confrontation extended throughout the time that the air-naval blockade of the island was maintained; fighter jets continued to fly low, to \u201cverify the dismantling of bases\u201d; the pressure continued so that, in addition to the nuclear missiles, the Il-28 bombers, the Komar speedboats, the MiG 21s, and other conventional weapons in Cuba, which the U.S. had not turned into a source of gossip, were withdrawn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Put to film by Robert Kennedy\u2019s best-seller <\/span>Thirteen Days<\/span><\/i>, that myth of the 13 days does not include the time in which the United States tried to continue forcing the Soviets, taking advantage of the fact that they were in retreat, and minimizing their effective support to Cuba, taking advantage of the fact that the island had not participated in the negotiation. The Crisis dragged on not only because of that U.S. pressure, the mediation of UN Secretary General U Thant, and the diplomatic mission of Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, but also because of the ongoing low-altitude flights. Only when Fidel Castro announced in a public letter to U Thant, on November 14, the decision not to allow more low-altitude flights, which thundered the airspace and the combat morale of Cubans, did JFK order them to be suspended (the next day), and then to demobilize the troops. That\u2019s when the Crisis was sealed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another repeated idea is that \u201cJFK\u2019s unyielding position\u201d and \u201csanity\u201d and the equanimity of the two leaders were key in pushing back the conflict, and cauterized its roots. If one considers that JFK was terrified by the predominance of the invasion of Cuba in his National Security Council, and Khrushchev had realized that the situation was getting out of hand after the shooting down of the U-2 in Holgu\u00edn, can it be understood that neither of the two sought a substantive, stable and lasting agreement, but only a quick settlement, to stop the nuclear strike, in the midst of a situation so hazardous that it could trigger World War III.<\/span><\/p>\n

After October<\/b><\/p>\n

This would not be of much importance if it were not because the cause of the crisis, that is, the U.S. threat, and its effects on the lives of Cubans, never ceased. Because being exposed and alone with a not exactly appeased United States determined its political system and the conduct of its leadership from then on. Because the Guant\u00e1namo naval base, with its constant provocations; support for the rebels in various provinces, and the headquarters of paramilitary organizations in Florida, throughout the 1960s and 1970s; the economic blockade, which has become the axis of the isolation and destabilization strategy, continued being present. And also, because the island remained a recurring actor on its radars about threats in the Caribbean, and a target in its contingency plans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, in 1978 a \u201cmini-crisis\u201d would be triggered around some MiG 23s \u201crecently discovered\u201d on the island; and another one, a year later, about an alleged \u201cnuclear submarine base\u201d in Cienfuegos. Both vanished into thin air, but fed by the same steam of 1962: Cuba as a \u201cSoviet proxy\u201d and \u201cexporter of revolutions,\u201d in the region and beyond. According to a Pentagon report in the 1980s, Cuba was a threat to the United States \u201conly less than the Soviet threat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As soon as the Central American wars began in that decade, General Alexander Haig, Secretary of State, publicly proposed \u201cgoing to the source\u201d of the conflict, and launching a \u201csurgical strike\u201d against Cuba, which, according to him, was the cause of the war in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The expression that General Haig used in private was the same as that of General Lemay in 1962: \u201cwe can turn the island into a parking lot in five minutes.\u201d The USSR, for its part, would secretly remind Cuba that the umbrella of the Warsaw Pact, twenty years later, was limited to the other side of the Atlantic.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, Pentagon military planners reasoned about Cuba\u2019s ability to interfere with the \u201csea lanes of communication\u201d required by the forces that crossed the Panama Canal and the Caribbean, in the scenario of a military contingency in Europe or the Middle East. The mere idea that the Cuban Navy \u2014 a fleet of coast guard boats, missile boats and three training submarines \u2014 was trying to stop the convoy of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division in a battle station in the Caribbean might seem more like the plot of a thriller. Except if you consider that its inverted version became a reality with the invasion of Granada, in 1983.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gathered in Antigua to prepare the Tripartite Conference on the Missile Crisis in Havana, McNamara assured me that if Cuba stopped intervening in El Salvador, the United States would seek to normalize relations, and that he knew it \u201cin good faith,\u201d that is, through George H. Bush\u2019s White House. Assuming that the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala were maintained due to Cuban support, I told him, why then did the U.S. veto Cuba\u2019s participation in the Contadora and Esquipulas negotiating tables? Instead of sitting down with the Cuban government, as when the peace agreement was reached in Southwest Africa, in 1988. Although the United States surely knows that Cuba has halved its armed forces after Angola, however, none of that has moved relations a millimeter. How can we guarantee that it would if Cuba turned its back on the FMLN; and that they will not continue to ask us for domestic policy concessions ad infinitum? \u201cI guarantee it,\u201d he told me.<\/span><\/p>\n

And 30 years later<\/b><\/p>\n

Thirty years later, without wars in Central America, Cuban troops in Africa or a Cuban-Soviet alliance, U.S. policy towards the island basically continues to drag the conflict structure inherited from the 1962 Crisis, and maintains the pattern of pre-conditions and double standards Just like it keeps trying to continue putting force against its big enemies and ignoring the little ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

60 years is nothing (II)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n