Cuban Missile Crisis: The Deal's Secret Half, October 28, 1962 #Shorts
Pack: 01 - Cuban Missile Crisis The Deal's Secret Half, October 28, 1962
On October 28, 1962, Radio Moscow announced that the Soviet missiles in Cuba were coming home. That was half of the deal that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis; the rest was spoken in private the night before, and the men involved did not confirm it for decades. Archival photos and documents, every claim sourced.
- Khrushchev's message was broadcast over Moscow radio at 5 p.m. on October 28, 1962, ordering the weapons dismantled, crated and returned to the Soviet Union, with a U.S. assurance of no invasion of Cuba (FRUS 1961–63, vol. XI, doc. 102).
- On October 27, after a U-2 was shot down over Cuba and Major Rudolf Anderson was killed, Khrushchev's second message, also broadcast, asked the United States to remove its missiles from Turkey (FRUS vol. XI, docs. 91 and 96; JFK Library).
- That night Robert Kennedy told Ambassador Dobrynin the Jupiter missiles in Turkey would be gone in four or five months, but nothing could be said in public. His own memo typed the "four or five months" sentence and then struck it out (FRUS vol. XI, doc. 96, note 3; Dobrynin's cable, via the National Security Archive).
- By McGeorge Bundy's count, nine Americans knew of the assurance. Not until 1989 did Theodore Sorensen admit he had edited it out of Robert Kennedy's book Thirteen Days (Hershberg, CWIHP Bulletin 5; Burr and Nuti, Wilson Center).
- There was also a fallback: Dean Rusk phoned Andrew Cordier at Columbia University and dictated a statement for UN Secretary-General U Thant proposing the swap openly, to be released only on a further signal. The signal never came, and only Kennedy, Rusk and Cordier knew (FRUS vol. XI, doc. 99). The Jupiters came out of Turkey in April 1963.
Was a secret assurance the right way to end it?
Sources
- Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. XI, doc. 102 (Khrushchev to Kennedy, October 28, 1962)
- FRUS vol. XI, doc. 91 (Khrushchev to Kennedy, October 27, 1962)
- FRUS vol. XI, doc. 96 (Robert F. Kennedy's memorandum to Rusk, October 30, 1962, with the struck-out sentence in note 3)
- FRUS vol. XI, doc. 99 (editorial note on Rusk's 1987 letter and the Cordier statement)
- James Hershberg, "Anatomy of a Controversy," CWIHP Bulletin 5 (1995), with Dobrynin's October 27, 1962 cable and Bundy's "nine" (National Security Archive)
- U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Milestones: The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962
- William Burr and Leopoldo Nuti, "The Jupiter Missiles and the Endgame of the Cuban Missile Crisis," Wilson Center, April 20, 2023
- John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Cuban Missile Crisis day by day, October 27, 1962 (U-2 shot down, Major Anderson killed, Robert Kennedy meets Dobrynin)
Images
- Kennedy and Khrushchev meet in Vienna, June 1961 (JFK Library PX 96-33:12), U.S. Department of State, public domain
- MRBM Field Launch Site San Cristobal No. 1, 14 October 1962 (NARA 193926), U.S. Department of Defense, public domain
- EXCOMM meeting, Cuban Missile Crisis, 29 October 1962 (JFK Library ST-A26-25-62), Cecil Stoughton, White House, public domain
- Memorandum from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, 30 October 1962, page 3 (JFK Library via DPLA), White House Office of the Personal Secretary, public domain
- Letter From President Kennedy to Secretary General U Thant, October 28, 1962 (NARA 193321), signed by Adlai E. Stevenson, public domain
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