What is happening now between Russia and the United States is in many ways reminiscent of the events of the middle of the last century, when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Now the religious war in the Middle East has engulfed all of Syria and part of neighboring countries. The unseemly role of Turkey, which wants to destroy the Turkish Kurds under the guise of fighting ISIS militants, complicates an already tense situation. And given that Turkey is a member of the NATO military bloc, a clash between two nuclear powers - Russia and the United States - becomes quite real.
Today it would be nice to remember the events called the Cuban Missile Crisis, which once brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. And one of the countries, because of which the situation escalated to the limit, was, oddly enough, also Turkey.
This is what happened more than half a century ago.
In 1961, the United States deployed medium-range nuclear missiles in Turkey, capable of hitting Moscow, Leningrad, and the industrial centers of the country in the USSR. The flight time of these missiles was only 10 minutes, and systems capable of intercepting and neutralizing these missiles in flight did not exist at that time. In addition, if such a missile is shot down, then the explosion of a nuclear warhead will still occur over the territory of the USSR. That is, the country was defenseless against the threat of a nuclear strike.
In response, the Soviet Union began to build up its armed presence in Cuba, increasing the number of regular military units and weapons in September 1962, and placing its nuclear missiles near the coast of the United States, capable of delivering a quick retaliatory strike in the event of hostilities. This was the first deployment of Soviet nuclear weapons outside the USSR and was supposed to act as a deterrent against ill-conceived decisions on the part of the United States. Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba targeted every major US city, including Washington DC and all US Air Force strategic bomber air bases, with a flight time of less than 20 minutes.
The transfer of weapons and troops to Cuba took place in the strictest secrecy; for its implementation, the Anadyr operation was developed, led by Marshal I.Kh. Bagromyan. According to the legend of the operation, the sea caravan went to Chukotka, where it was supposed to deliver food and warm uniforms. Not a single ship captain who participated in the operation knew about the true purpose of the campaign and the contents of the holds.
The operation to transfer nuclear missiles went brilliantly. Under the noses of the Americans, medium-range nuclear missiles R-12 and R-14, cruise missiles, anti-aircraft systems, a squadron of MiG-21 fighters, 42 Il-28 bombers, an Mi-4 helicopter regiment, four motorized rifle regiments, two tank battalion. In addition, the forces of the Soviet Navy were sent to Cuba, consisting of two cruisers, four destroyers, 12 missile boats, 11 submarines, including seven with nuclear missiles. The group of Soviet troops in Cuba became the first foreign Soviet military group equipped with nuclear ballistic missiles. 
When American U-2 spy planes managed to detect the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, the first batch of launchers had already been assembled. The news came as a shock to the White House. US President John F. Kennedy called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, which tried to develop a response. Three options were considered: destroy the rocket launchers with pinpoint strikes, conduct a full-scale military operation in Cuba, or impose a naval blockade of the island. The first two options were rejected because of the danger of missile launches and the possible intervention of the Soviet Union. It was decided to impose a naval blockade within a radius of 500 nautical miles around the island, despite the fact that this was illegal from the point of view of world law.
The Soviet leadership declared the blockade of Cuba illegal, and the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev warned that attempts to attack or detain Soviet ships would be regarded as a declaration of war on the USSR, with all the ensuing consequences. The armed forces of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries were put on high alert. Meanwhile, a sea caravan of 30 Soviet ships was approaching Cuba, delivering 24 warheads for medium-range ballistic missiles and 45 warheads for cruise missiles to Cuba.
The situation escalated to the limit, each next was more intense than the previous one.
On October 24, 1962, the naval blockade of Cuba went into effect. 180 ships of the US Navy surrounded the island in a tight ring, but the captains of the ships were ordered not to enter into conflicts with Soviet ships without a personal order from the president. On October 23, a conversation took place at the Soviet embassy in Washington between Robert Kennedy (at that time the US Attorney General) and Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. Dobrynin confirmed that the captains of the Soviet ships were instructed not to obey the illegal demands of the US Navy. Kennedy replied that the US would not allow Soviet ships to reach Cuba.
On October 24, part of the Soviet ships reached the island, and President John F. Kennedy sent a telegram to Khrushchev asking him to "be reasonable and observe the conditions of the blockade." In response, Khrushchev wrote a letter to Kennedy, in which he pointed out the inadmissibility of the ultimatum delivered and called the blockade "an act of aggression pushing humanity into the abyss of a world nuclear missile war." He also pointed out that the Soviet Union would take all possible actions to protect its ships. 
On October 25, an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was held, at which the Americans pointed to the secret deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. At the same time, Kennedy gave the order to increase the combat readiness of the US Armed Forces to the highest level.
October 26 The leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro, writes a telegram to Khrushchev, in which he asks for decisive action from the Soviet Union and reports that, according to his data, military intervention in Cuba will begin within 24-72 hours. At the same time, USSR Minister of Defense Malinovsky received a report from the commander of Soviet troops in Cuba, General Pliev, about the increased activity of American strategic aviation in the Caribbean.
October 27th went down in Caribbean Crisis history as Black Saturday. In the morning, an air defense installation in Cuba recorded an invasion of an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft into the airspace of the island. After some hesitation, an order was given to destroy the intruder. At 10:22 a.m., the plane was shot down and the pilot died. Two more naval reconnaissance aircraft were fired upon while overflying Cuban territory, one of them was damaged, but both returned safely to their base.
Kennedy's military advisers tried to persuade the president to immediately order an invasion of Cuba "before it was too late." Kennedy did not reject such a development of the situation, but did not give up hope for a peaceful solution to the conflict. On this day, the world was one step away from nuclear war.
On the night of October 27-28, another meeting took place between Robert Kennedy and Anatoly Dobrynin. This time it took place in Kennedy's office, where he asked the Soviet ambassador to persuade Khrushchev to negotiate the dismantling of Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba, promising that his brother, John F. Kennedy, would give his personal guarantees of non-aggression against Cuba and the withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey. . Dobrynin immediately telegraphed to the Kremlin about the meeting, asking for an answer as quickly as possible.
On the morning of October 27, Khrushchev received a telegram from Kennedy, in which he once again confirmed the guarantee of the fulfillment of his promises and asked for an urgent answer today. It was felt that the president was under strong pressure from the military, who were ready to launch an invasion of Cuba.
At noon, Khrushchev sent two telegrams to Kennedy, in the first he confirmed his consent to the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, in the second he reminded that he was counting on the speedy dismantling of nuclear missiles from Turkey. In order to exclude any accidents that could lead to the outbreak of a military conflict in Cuba, the first telegram was broadcast over the radio.
In three weeks, Russian missile launchers were dismantled and removed from Cuba, on November 20, Kennedy ordered the lifting of the naval blockade of the island, and within a few months, American missiles were also withdrawn from Turkey.
Thus ended the first and most serious crisis between the two superpowers, which brought the whole world to the brink of nuclear war. It is very good that the leaders of the USA and the USSR had the wisdom not to follow their ambitions and the desires of the generals to unleash a new war, and they were able to make very serious concessions to preserve peace.
Now in Syria, we are witnessing an unprecedented escalation of the armed conflict, in which two nuclear powers have been drawn into, capable of destroying not only each other, but all life on our planet. Isn't it time to stop and ask ourselves: “Where are we going? What are we striving for? And are our goals worth the enormous risk we are putting all of humanity at? 
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Historians are still debating which factor played a major role in the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962: the desire to protect the Cuban revolution, especially after the unsuccessful military operation undertaken in 1960 by the CIA, together with Cuban émigrés to overthrow the Castro regime, or the desire to respond to deployment in 1961 of American PGM-19 Jupiter medium-range missiles in Turkey.
New missiles with nuclear warheads, capable of reaching the European part of the USSR in just 15 minutes, of course, gave even more advantages to the United States, which at that time already surpassed the USSR in nuclear power, especially in the field of warhead delivery vehicles. But the Soviet leadership was not going to disregard the requests of the Cubans for military assistance.
One way or another, in May 1962, at the initiative of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, it was decided to put Soviet missiles in Cuba. The rationale is the need to protect the first socialist state in the Western Hemisphere from the imminent American invasion.
In June 1962, the Soviet General Staff developed Operation Anadyr. It was planned to transfer 40 nuclear missiles to Cuba: 24 R-12 medium-range missiles and 16 R-14 missiles. In addition, 42 Soviet Il-28 bombers, a squadron of MiG-21 fighters, a Mi-4 helicopter regiment, 4 motorized rifle regiments, 2 tank battalions, 2 units of cruise missiles with nuclear warheads with a range of 160 km and 12 ZKR S -75. The naval grouping was to include 11 submarines with nuclear missiles, 2 cruisers, 4 destroyers and 12 Komar missile boats.
The Anadyr operation itself was carried out in strict secrecy, and the crews of ships with missiles on board found out their final destination only at sea, after opening the sealed envelopes. However, it was not possible to hide the movement of weapons from the United States. Already in September 1962, the Americans learned about the deployment of anti-aircraft missiles in Cuba, and on October 14, a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft under the control of pilot Richard Heizer photographed two Soviet R-12 ballistic missiles on the island.
- R-12 medium-range ballistic missile
“We must not forget that before that, Cuba, under the control of Batista, was firmly within the zone of influence of the United States of America,” said Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute for the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with RT.
The United States, until 1959, when the revolution led by Fidel Castro ended in Cuba, treated it as its semi-colony and was shocked to learn that Soviet missiles appeared on the island, which could cover half of the United States.
“It was precisely a reaction bordering on panic,” the expert notes. “And although neither the USSR nor Cuba violated international law, and moreover, the Soviet Union only took symmetrical measures in response to the deployment of American missiles in Europe and Turkey, the United States was ready for any action to eliminate the threat posed by Cuba.” .
panic reaction
The first reaction of the American leadership was to work out scenarios of force. The idea to start bombing Cuba was rejected immediately. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell Taylor, and General Curtis LeMay, who was in charge of the Air Force headquarters, advocated preparations for an invasion of the island. The transfer of troops to Florida began. The invasion was advocated by Congress, which in September 1962 gave the President the right to use the US Armed Forces in Cuba.
However, after deliberation, President Kennedy rejected the intervention, believing that the USSR could respond to the attack on Freedom Island. Neither the American leader, nor even the CIA at that moment knew that by that time 12 Luna tactical missile systems with nuclear warheads had already been deployed in Cuba, which Soviet troops could use against the Americans.
According to Vasiliev, the panicked reaction of the Americans, which was noted by many eyewitnesses of those events, was the main reason that the deployment of Soviet missiles near the US coast led to a large-scale crisis, although similar American actions did not cause the same nervous reaction from the USSR.
“The world was on the brink of a nuclear war, because that is how the American military and political leadership reacted,” the expert notes.
As a result, President Kennedy settled on the introduction of a blockade of Cuba, which was called "quarantine". On October 22, 1962, the American leader made a special televised address to the nation, where he spoke about Soviet missiles in Cuba and warned that any missile launch would be regarded as an act of aggression. The USSR, in response, stressed that its ships would not comply with the conditions of the blockade and would take all necessary measures to ensure their safety.
On October 24, 1962, Khrushchev sent a letter to Kennedy, in which he called the US actions "an act of aggression pushing humanity towards the abyss of a world nuclear missile war."
“In those days, the world was on the verge of a nuclear conflict. Kennedy gave the order to destroy Soviet ships heading for Cuba. Our submarines were ordered to defend themselves, including with the use of atomic weapons, ”said Alexander Panov, head of the MGIMO diplomacy department, in an interview with RT.
From "Black Saturday" to detente
On October 27, the so-called Black Saturday came, when, according to historians, the danger of a war between the USSR and the USA was greatest. On this day, Soviet missilemen shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over Cuba, pilot Rudolf Anderson died. The American military at the same time urged Kennedy to launch an invasion of Cuba, and Fidel Castro, confident that this would happen one way or another, bombarded Moscow with calls to launch a nuclear strike on the United States. However, the leaders of the two world powers did not succumb to persuasion.
- Fidel Castro
- globallookpress.com
- Keystone Pictures USA
On the night of October 27-28, 1962, the brother of the President of the United States, Senator Robert Kennedy met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. An agreement was reached that the USSR would withdraw missiles from Cuba if the United States removed its missiles from Turkey, lift the blockade of the island and give guarantees that it would not attack Cuba.
The search for a diplomatic solution to the problem, however, began a little earlier. On October 26, Khrushchev sent the second letter to Kennedy during the crisis, in which he urged his American colleague not to aggravate the situation and offered to dismantle Soviet missiles in Cuba in exchange for the US committing itself to abandon any attempt to invade the island.
- Nikita Khrushchev and John Kennedy
KGB resident Alexander Feklisov also conducted his negotiations, passing messages from the Soviet special services through ABC News correspondent John Scully, who knew Robert and John F. Kennedy.
Three weeks after reaching agreements between the USSR and the USA, Soviet missiles were withdrawn from Cuba. On November 20, 1962, John F. Kennedy lifted the blockade of Cuba. A few months later, the US withdrew its medium-range missiles from Turkey.
“If we talk about the military side of the issue, then the USSR was forced to remove its medium-range missiles from Cuba, at the same time, the Soviet Union had very few ballistic intercontinental missiles at that time, units. In this sense, the threat to the United States was removed - while the American side had ICBMs. If we count shells, delivery vehicles, etc., then it turns out that Washington has received more advantages, ”said Yury Rogulev, director of the Franklin Roosevelt Foundation for the Study of the United States (MSU), in an interview with RT.
But nevertheless, it is not quite right to approach this issue purely statistically - the main thing is that it was possible to prevent a nuclear war, the expert believes.
Lesson learned
“This crisis has demonstrated the need to maintain some kind of interaction between the two powers,” Rogulev believes.
As these events unfolded, information was passed between Moscow and Washington through intermediaries. “Confidential persons from the intelligence agencies met specifically to exchange information almost in safe houses,” the expert notes.
Only after the Caribbean crisis was a direct telephone connection established between the White House and the Kremlin.
“The result of the crisis was the understanding that such events should not be brought to a repetition. Negotiations began on the reduction of nuclear weapons. In particular, a nuclear test ban treaty was signed (in 1963),” Panov said.
These events marked the beginning of an era of negotiations, the result of which was the reduction of weapons, experts say. However, now, according to Rogulev, the era of negotiations on arms reduction is a thing of the past.
As Mikhail Ulyanov, Director of the Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control of the Russian Foreign Ministry, noted on October 20, the United States is not interested in extending the 2010 Strategic Arms Reduction and Limitation Treaty (START-3), which expires in 2021.
“The main lesson of those events is that you can’t drive yourself into a corner and you can’t create a situation where a nuclear war is the way out of the crisis,” says Vasiliev.
According to the expert, both the leadership of the USSR and the leadership of the United States learned it well during the Cold War.
“This lesson is forgotten today in the situation with North Korea,” the expert says. - The United States of America has now, thanks to Trump's rhetoric, come to a situation where the way out is the start of hostilities, which can very quickly develop into a crisis with the use of nuclear weapons. And then - a chain of unpredictable events, the consequence of which could be a third world war.
In February 1962, the KGB informed the leadership of the Soviet Union that the United States planned to put an end to the government of F. Castro: "The main blow to Cuba is planned to be delivered from the American military base of Guantanamo Bay with the support of the Navy ships located in the Caribbean Sea. The actions of the ground forces will be supported by the Air Force based in Florida and Texas...". On March 13, 1962, Operation Northwoods was approved.
In May 1962, N. S. Khrushchev, in a conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs A. A. Gromyko, noted the seriousness of the situation around Cuba: "It is necessary to place a certain number of our nuclear missiles there. Only this can save the country ...". All participants in the meeting at the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU supported Khrushchev. The General Staff developed the Anadyr operation to transfer to Cuba the Soviet group (up to 44 thousand people) and the 51st separate missile division, which had 40 R12 and R14 launchers.
In the chronicle published by Rodina, there is a denouement of dramatic events on the threshold of the Third World War.
Mid September 1962
Special TASS statement: "The Soviet Union does not need to transfer to any country, for example, Cuba, the means it has to repel aggression ...
Our nuclear weapons are so powerful ... that there is no need to look for a place to deploy them somewhere outside the USSR."
October 9
Message from the USSR military attache in the USA: US special troops will be increased from 4,000 to 6,639 people, and Cuban mercenaries will be enrolled in the "anti-Castro expeditionary force."
Kennedy creates a special "crisis group" ... Some of them propose to strike at the positions of Soviet missiles in Cuba
October 14
A US reconnaissance aircraft photographed two Soviet missiles in the San Cristobal area.
October 16
Kennedy creates a special "crisis group" of senior officials. Some of them propose to strike at the positions of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
October 18
14.00-18.00
A. Gromyko's meeting with President D. Kennedy. The Soviet minister noted that the USSR "would not play the role of an outside observer." Kennedy offers a deal: "The United States will not attempt an armed invasion of Cuba. Soviet offensive weapons must be removed from Cuba."
The 20th of October
President Kennedy decides to declare a naval blockade of Cuba.
22 of October
Secretary of State Rusk conveys a personal message from the American President to NS Khrushchev and the text of his latest address to the American people: "The United States is determined to eliminate this threat to the security of our hemisphere."
President Kennedy announces on TV and radio the introduction of October 24, from 1400 GMT, "quarantine" on all types of offensive
weapons imported into Cuba.
The meeting of the leadership of the Soviet embassy in the United States and the meeting of Ambassador Dobrynin with the leaders of the Soviet intelligence services. Taking the necessary precautions and destroying certain documents.
Message from the GRU resident in Washington: "1) The establishment of a strict quarantine against the delivery of offensive weapons to Cuba. All ships carrying such weapons on board will not be
be admitted to Cuba; 2) increased surveillance of military construction in Cuba...; 3) an attack by nuclear weapons from the territory of Cuba on any other country in the Western Hemisphere will be regarded as an attack by the USSR on the USA; 4) the Guantanamo base is being strengthened, a number of military units are put on alert... 6) The US demanded an immediate meeting of the Security Council. In the Caribbean, under the pretext of maneuvers, there are 45 ships with 20 thousand people, including 8 thousand sea
foot soldiers."
October 23
Statement of the Soviet government: the naval blockade of Cuba is "unprecedented aggressive actions." In the USSR, the dismissal of older ages from the army has been delayed, vacations have been canceled, and the troops have been put on high alert.
October 24
Khrushchev's second personal message to President Kennedy: "We will ... be compelled ... to take measures that we deem necessary and
precise in order to protect their rights."
Morning
GRU radio intercept data on the order of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the US Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC): "prepare for a nuclear attack."
A message from the GRU resident in Washington: "During the day of October 23, 85 strategic aircraft were flying over the United States.
Of these, 22 are B-52 bombers. 57 B-47s flew from the US to Europe."
Meeting of an employee of the embassy G.N. Bolshakov with the American journalist C. Bartlett, where the Americans are trying to find an additional channel of communication with the Soviet leadership.
Around 14.00
American TV channels show how a Soviet tanker crossed an imaginary line, but the American warships did not fire and let it go further. Another Soviet ship "Alexandrovsk", carrying 24 nuclear warheads for medium-range missiles and 44 atomic charges for land-based cruise missiles, managed to moor in the Cuban port of La Isabella instead of the port of Mariel.
Around 18.00
The second meeting between Bartlett and Bolshakov, at which the American for the first time voiced the variant of the deal - "the elimination of Soviet missiles on the territory of Cuba in exchange for the closure of the American missile base in Turkey."
the 25th of October
Message from the GRU resident in New York: "The first echelon of the invasion of Cuba has been prepared, which will go to sea in the next few hours." A note by GRU chief I.A. Serov: "According to KGB intelligence, the invasion of Cuba is supposedly scheduled for October 26."
The first half of the day
Cuban civil defense systems, nuclear shelters are brought to full readiness, the population in a panic buys food and other essential goods.
After 21.00
Kennedy's personal message to NS Khrushchev, in which the President proposes to return "to the previous situation."
Khrushchev's message to Kennedy: We will... be compelled... to take action as we see fit
October 26
Two meetings between A.S. Feklisov, an adviser to the embassy, and A.B.C. island. President Kennedy receives a letter from N.S. Khrushchev with a proposal from the Soviet side: it announces the rejection of military supplies in general, and the American side - the rejection of intervention in Cuba.
27th October
6.45. Moscow
Telegram from BAT (military attache), VMAT (naval attaché) and BAT air attaché) of the USSR in the USA: an American invasion of Cuba is possible in the next 5-7 days.
Message from the GRU resident in Washington: "The United States really decided to seek ... the destruction of missile bases in Cuba, up to the invasion ... Everything is ready for the invasion of Cuba; it's a matter of pretext, and the best pretext is the bases, their ongoing construction ... Invasion to Cuba could take place later this week."
Top secret
"Simulate the downing of a US military aircraft..."
In 2001, the details of the provocation planned by the American side were declassified in the United States.
1. Sabotage in and around the American military base in Guantanamo Bay (arson of an aircraft and sinking of a ship; it is necessary to publish a list of non-existent "dead" in the media).
2. The sinking of the ship with Cuban refugees.
3. Organize terrorist attacks in Miami, other cities in Florida and Washington, directed at Cuban refugees. Arrest "Cuban agents" and publish false documents.
4. Carry out an air raid on the territory of states adjacent to Cuba.
5. Simulate attacks on passenger planes and shoot down an unmanned American plane or blow up a radio-controlled ship. To simulate attacks, use an F-86 Saber fighter repainted as a "Cuban MiG" ... Publish in the newspapers a list of those killed in a downed plane or blown up ship.
6. Simulate the downing of a US military aircraft by a Cuban MiG"
28 of October
16.00. Washington
29th of October
October 30
R. Kennedy confirmed the President's consent to the elimination of American military bases in Turkey, but without mentioning the connection with the Cuban events.
27th October
Morning. Washington
"Black Saturday"
Kennedy receives another letter from Khrushchev. The Soviet leader declares that the USSR agrees to withdraw "those assets from Cuba that you consider offensive" and proposes "to withdraw similar American assets from Turkey."
The first half of the day
The next meeting of the "crisis group": it was decided that the United States will not mention Turkey in the official dialogue.
Afternoon
Kennedy responds to Khrushchev: The USSR must stop all work on missile sites and, under international control, render all offensive weapons in Cuba inactive.
27th October
Evening
A.F. Dobrynin meeting with R. Kennedy in connection with the downed American reconnaissance aircraft over Cuba. At the end of the conversation, R. Kennedy, in response to a question about Turkey, said: “If this is now the only obstacle to achieving the above-mentioned settlement, then the president does not see insurmountable difficulties in resolving this issue either. The main difficulty for the president is a public discussion of the issue of Turkey. missile bases in Turkey was formalized by NATO's official decision... However, the president... is ready to negotiate behind the scenes on this issue as well."
27th October
Around 24.00
Message from the GRU resident in Washington: "1) The situation at 24.00 27.10 remains tense. The next 24 hours are considered decisive. 2) US Secretary of Defense McNamara ordered the Secretary of the Air Force to transfer 24 airborne squadrons with support units from the reserve. The squadrons are intended to transfer the first attack echelon during the landing. 3) increased movement of troops on the roads of Florida completed. 4) On Saturday, up to 50% of the personnel continued to work at the Pentagon. "
Head of the GRU I.A. Serov: “I ask you to urgently find out and report by all available means: 1) the number of troops, equipment and their belonging in Florida and Guantanamo; 2) the concentration of counter-revolutionary forces that were previously in Latin America and transferred to Florida and Guantanamo ; 3) the number of vehicles in the Florida area adapted to the landing of troops."
28 of October
Message from the GRU resident in Washington: “The United States is building up its grouping of forces in the Caribbean Sea. 1) The 19th air group arrived on October 17 at MacDill Air Force Base (Florida) ... includes from 50 to 75 aircraft, including RF-100 supersonic fighters and RF‑101 and KB‑66 aircraft. ships, 3 submarines, anti-submarine defense ships.The exercises are scheduled to continue until October 30. 3) Marine units (25 thousand people) and an infantry battalion (1200) have been transferred from California to the east coast ... ".
28 of October
16.00. Washington
Telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "The issue of dismantling missile bases in Cuba under international control does not meet with objections and will be covered in detail in Khrushchev's message." The Soviet leader agreed not to publicly discuss the elimination of American missile bases in Turkey.
Khrushchev's message was delivered to the President of the United States.
R. Kennedy confirmed the president's consent to the liquidation of American military bases in Turkey, but without mentioning the connection with the Cuban events.
Above one of the tables of the fashionable Washington restaurant "Occidental" there is a sign with several lines on the metal: "During the tense period of the Caribbean crisis (October 1962), the mysterious Russian Mr. X handed over a proposal to remove missiles from Cuba to a correspondent of the ABC television company "To John Scali. This meeting served to eliminate a possible nuclear war."
Political Intelligence Resident
Next to the tablet is a portrait of the correspondent. But there is neither a name nor a portrait of his interlocutor. With whom did John Scali, the star of American television journalism, a man close to the Kennedy family, communicate at this historic table? Russian Mr. "X" - a resident of the Soviet political intelligence in Washington, Alexander Fomin.
Real name - Alexander Semenovich Feklisov.
Let's go back to that day, October 26, 1962. A 40,000th contingent of our military has already been deployed to Cuba, and the installation of 42 missiles with nuclear warheads aimed at the United States has almost been completed. The world is on the brink of a third world war. Colonel of foreign intelligence Alexander Feklisov is one of those very few people who managed to prevent the catastrophe.
His daughter Natalia Alexandrovna Feklisova-Asatur learned about her father's secret work as an adult.
Only at the age of forty-nine, she tells me, I first heard that my father was engaged in intelligence, worked with people like Julius Rosenberg and Klaus Fuchs ... I was stunned. At school, we were told about the cruelty and bias of the American court that sent young people to the electric chair. I could not even imagine that my father met with them and even considered Julius Rosenberg his friend! There was never a word or a hint about this at home. My sister and I clearly knew one thing: my father was an employee of the Foreign Ministry. He was very fond of the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring", when it was shown, he always called my sister and me, wanted us to watch together. We thought: this is how dad likes the picture. Only many years later I began to understand that his life, work in New York, London and Washington - the material for several of these films!
Single trainee
As Feklisov himself said in the documentary "The Caribbean Crisis Through the Eyes of a Resident", he became a scout by accident. "My father is a switchman on the railroad, and as a child I dreamed of becoming a machinist's assistant, well, maybe even a machinist." But when Feklisov was graduating from the Institute of Communications Engineers, he was offered to continue his studies at the SEON - School for Special Purposes. And a year later, in 1941, they began to prepare for a business trip to the United States.
Natalia Alexandrovna is still surprised: how could her father be sent to America? Too young. Language is weak. Didn't have a family. Finally, deaf. In his youth, when the house where the Feklisov family lived caught fire, he saved people all night and collapsed to sleep on cold boards in the barn in the morning. When I woke up, I did not immediately realize that one ear was not hearing.
But the leadership of SHON saw something more important in him: Feklisov is able to work around the clock and always achieves his goal. The first task for a novice intelligence officer is to establish two-way radio communication with Moscow. How? He must decide this himself, on the spot. According to legend, an intern at the USSR Consulate General in New York, Alexander Fomin, is given a room in a low-rise building surrounded by high-rise buildings. A guy from Rogozhskaya Zastava finds and buys several bamboo poles (those used by athletes), fastens them with couplings, puts the resulting antenna on stretch marks - and from now on New York and Moscow are connected by an invisible strong thread.
Pretty quickly, Alexander corrects the column "not married" in the questionnaire. Natalia Alexandrovna shows a photograph of a pretty young woman:
This is the mother of the year they met. Ten girls who graduated from foreign language in Moscow were sent to New York to work in Amtorg. Father said that Zina Osipova immediately fascinated him with her cornflower blue eyes. Zinulya, as her father called her mother, became not only a wife, but also a good helper. Fluent in English, she could speak and take any American wife aside so that the men could discuss their problems in private.
The father knew how to win over almost any person. During his work, we later found out, he had 17 foreign agents, - continues Natalia Aleksandrovna. Some he called friends. Much later, my father arranged in his Moscow apartment on Bolshaya Gruzinskaya "a cache of expensive things" (as he called it), apparently, in case thieves got into the house. Somehow I took out an old shabby wallet with my sister: "Gift from an American friend." But he didn't say what.
Working with "friends" brought the scout more than once to the center of important, truly historical events.
Great negotiator
On October 22, 1962, Fomina invites John Scali, a well-known political television observer, for breakfast at the Occidental restaurant. The scout had been meeting with him for a year and a half.
Scali looks flustered. Without preamble, he begins to accuse Khrushchev of an aggressive policy: "Is your general secretary crazy?" Feklisov objects: "The arms race was initiated by the United States!"
The two part, dissatisfied with each other. The situation is becoming more and more explosive with each passing hour. Secret information is leaking into the residency: the American army will be ready to land in Cuba on October 29th. And at the same time, no important instructions are coming from Moscow...
Father, - says Natalia Alexandrovna, - was silent about the events around the Caribbean crisis for many years. Once there was only something like a hint, but then, because of my youth, I did not understand anything. He gave me two tickets to the Theater of Satire for a performance based on Burlatsky's play The Burden of Decisions. He said: "It might be interesting. It's about American affairs, President Kennedy is played by Andrei Mironov. I can't go." My friend and I ran only because of Mironov. The play was about the Caribbean Crisis, there was a Soviet employee named Fomin, and I, since I was born in New York, had the same surname as a child! She could, it seems, think about something ... But, frankly, we were not interested in watching the performance.
On the morning of October 26, Fomin decides to invite Skali to lunch at the same restaurant in the hope of getting fresh information from him. In the book "Danger and Survival" McGeorge Bundy (US national security adviser) will later write that Scali's upcoming meeting with a Soviet intelligence officer was reported to the president. Kennedy ordered Fomin to be told: "Time is short. The Kremlin must urgently make a declaration of its consent, without any conditions, to withdraw its missiles from Cuba."
The intelligence officer's memory preserved this meeting in all its details. Alexander Semenovich spoke about her in the book "Confession of a Scout" (published in 1999; the second edition, prepared by her daughter, was published in 2016):
Rubbing his hands and looking at me with a smile, Scali said:
Khrushchev apparently considers Kennedy a young, inexperienced statesman. He is deeply mistaken, of which he will soon be convinced. The Pentagon assures the President that in forty-eight hours it will be able to do away with the Fidel Castro regime and Soviet missiles.
Invading Cuba is tantamount to giving Khrushchev free rein. The Soviet Union could strike back at a vulnerable spot for Washington.
Scali did not seem to expect such an answer. He looked into my eyes for a long time, then asked:
Do you think, Alexander, it will be West Berlin?
As a response, it is quite possible ... You know, John, when a thousandth avalanche of Soviet tanks goes into battle, and ground attack aircraft attack from the air at a strafing flight ... They will sweep away everything in their path ...
This is where our polemic with Scali ended ... Here I must say that no one authorized me to tell Scali about the possible capture of West Berlin. It was the impulse of my soul ... I acted at my own peril and risk. "
Khrushchev's informant
The scout could not guess what happened next. His words were immediately communicated to the owner of the White House, and after three hours Kennedy handed over to the journalist a compromise proposal to resolve the crisis.
Scali called Fomin to a new meeting.
"Wasting no time, he announced that, on behalf of the "highest authority," he conveys the following conditions for resolving the Caribbean crisis: the USSR dismantles and removes rocket launchers from Cuba under UN control; the United States lifts the blockade of the island; the United States publicly undertakes not to invade Cuba " .
The intelligence officer asked to clarify what the term "highest power" means. "Minting every word, the interlocutor said: "John Fitzgerald Kennedy is the President of the United States of America."
Fomin assured Scali that he would immediately report the proposal from the American side to his ambassador. "But it's one thing to promise, and another thing to do." Ambassador Dobrynin studied the stunning text for exactly three hours, then invited Feklisov. He said in an apologetic voice: "I cannot send such a telegram, because the Foreign Ministry did not authorize the embassy for such negotiations."
"Surprised at the ambassador's indecisiveness," Feklisov recalled, "I signed the telegram myself and handed it over to the cryptographer to send to my boss."
Khrushchev's positive answer came on Sunday, October 28, at ten o'clock in the morning. The USSR withdrew its missiles from Cuba, the US lifted the blockade from the island, and six months later removed its missiles from Turkey. The earthlings breathed a sigh of relief.
Doctor of Philosophy Hakob Nazaretyan, head of the Euro-Asian Center for Megahistory and System Forecasting of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, claims that these two men - Feklisov and Skali - saved not just millions of lives, but the civilization of the planet Earth. "These were days and hours of world history, very modestly imprinted in Russia by ungrateful descendants."
Mysterious Mr. "X"
The American scientist James Blythe, author of the book On the Brink ("On the verge"), in 1989 in Moscow handed over to the scout his book with the inscription "Alexander Feklisov - the person with whom I always wanted to meet; the person who played a key role in the greatest event our time".
Based on the book "13 Days" by Robert Kennedy, then the Minister of Justice, a film of the same name was made, where one of the main characters was introduced under the name Alexander Fomin. When it became clear that the possibilities of official diplomacy have been exhausted, the political adviser to the American president (played by Kevin Koestner) comes up with a happy idea to involve a TV journalist who is friends with a certain Alexander Fomin in the negotiations. "His real name is Alexander Feklisov," the adviser says. "He's a super spy! The chief intelligence officer of the KGB!"
The film was released in 2000, Feklisov managed to watch it. Natalia Alexandrovna recalls:
My father liked the movie. The only thing that annoyed me was the way they dressed "Alexander Fomin" - the collar of his sweater peeked out from under his jacket. He said: "Only farmers went in sweaters, and I was always in a shirt and a tie!" But in general, he said, the film accurately reflects the events.
Private Alexander Fedotov, a telephone operator-dispatcher, was selected for a mysterious "task" from a separate company at the headquarters of the 21st Air Defense Division in Odessa. Place of deployment - the village of Limonar in the province of Matanzas, the territory of the former American driving school. The combat mission is to control all aircraft in the Cuban sky.
Some details from the story of Alexander Grigoryevich about the Cuban business trip were recorded by our correspondent in St. Petersburg, Anna Romanova.
Duty
The entire map of Cuba was divided into a coordinate grid with secret codes that changed once a week. I accepted encrypted applications and entered them into the "Flight Plan" - this was necessary in order to exclude civil aircraft from the category of air targets.
Since the beginning of September, the Americans have been especially active in "ironing" the Cuban sky in F-104 fighters. "Couple of Americans at low level, wait" - a typical call from the radar post. Radars catch the target, they receive coordinates at the headquarters, the planners put the target on the tablet ...
Life
Changing of the guard at night. Machine guns under the cloaks, you are constantly waiting for the "contra" bullets from around the corner. A dozen meters from the guard post, behind the fence in a wretched hut, lives an old Cuban who sneaks along the fence at night with a candle in his hand. He scares the hell out of us - what is he doing there at night? Who is looking for? Later we found out that it was a harmless madman.
Our people went to the Cubans with concerts - they sang, played out funny scenes from army life. During such "tours" I saw a sight not for the faint of heart on the coast of the Gulf of Florida! There are hundreds of American ships on the road, desperate young Cubans are brandishing Colts on the shore. "Patria o muerte!" - the slogan of the revolution. It was evident how their support for such a power as the USSR inflames them.
During the harvest season, ours helped local farmers pick tomatoes - but only green ones for export, so that they could ripen on the way. Eaten to the stomach...
denouement
The night of October 26-27 passed in monstrous tension. In the evening, all the women from our territory - civilian radio operators, telephone operators were taken to karst caves, which served as shelters. The personnel were ordered to carry weapons. Our radars have spotted targets - dozens of US aircraft rush to the Cuban borders. Fidel Castro ordered: "Cuban borders are sacred and inviolable, destroy any violator!" Immediately an order comes from Moscow: "Categorically do not take any action against American aircraft in violation of Cuban borders!"
The planes flew to the border and began loitering along it. The whole night and the whole next day became a test of strength and endurance - what will happen next? Who will give in? Who can't stand it? Only later did we learn that ours had shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft with a missile.
At home, Alexander Fedotov was waiting for the bride - a Leningrad student. In Cuba, he collected for her a herbarium of exotic flowers and plants from Cuba. Of course, he made "applications" by phone to his colleagues - they sent him rarities with an opportunity from different parts of the island. That girl became his wife, they have been living together in St. Petersburg for more than forty years.
Junior Sergeant Felix Sukhanovsky: The Cubans tried to persuade us: "Kamrad, launch a rocket!"
My father, Felix Alexandrovich Sukhanovsky, junior sergeant of the engineer company of the 181st missile regiment of the 50th Red Banner Missile Division of the 43rd Red Banner Missile Army, spoke for the first time about his Cuban epic only at the end of the 80s. I only spoke recently. I wrote down his story, excerpts from which I offer Rodina.
Alexey Sukhanovsky, Arkhangelsk
The silence of word of mouth
I was drafted into the army from the first year of the Arkhangelsk Forest Engineering Institute, already at the age of 22. He graduated from "Training" as a junior sergeant, head of a radio station, and ended up serving in an engineering and technical company. The head of our division was Lieutenant Colonel Gerasimov, a Suvorovite, a polite, tough, figured drill soldier.
The omniscient "word of mouth" turned out to be either deaf or dumb: no rumors about where we were being sent circulated. Just one of the nights at the end of September 1962, we were alerted and sent to the port of Nikolaev on covered trucks. From there, in ignorance, sailed for seventeen days, having no idea about the destination. We unloaded into the pitch night, passing to the pier to the trucks through the corridor of submachine gunners. Some, completely killed by the rolling of the sea, were dragged in their arms. Where we are is unknown. Darkness is total. Constellations - do not understand what ...
At six in the morning the sun rose and we saw palm trees. Only later did we learn that we were camping in the countryside at Los Palacios near San Cristobal, southwest of Havana.
"Comrade-comrade, press!"
Settled in a fairly large perimeter, surrounded by barbed wire. Guards were carried by Cuban soldiers, who, as our company commander, Captain Kologreev, said, were told by Fidel himself: "If something happens to at least one of the Russians, I will shoot." But for all the time there were no sabotage or provocations in our places. Only every day American reconnaissance planes flew over the location.
The mood of the guys was different. Who hung his nose, saying, they say, here is our grave, we will not get out of here forever. Who, not at all discouraged, silently did their job, and the noisy Leningraders completely set off in search of adventure: they made contacts with the guards and then boasted of their acquaintance with local girls, admired Cuban rum and even got hold of a guitar. I think everything except the guitar was a lie and a boast.
On the fourth day after the landing, they assembled the launch pads, docked the warheads of nuclear warheads to the missiles, refueled them, put them in a combat position, pointed them at targets - and from October 25 they were waiting for the order to launch in full readiness.
This is how our combat position near San Cristobal was captured for history by American reconnaissance aircraft: two launch pads, long tents, a command post, cable lines, a fleet of tractors and tankers with TM185 fuel and AK27I oxidizer, columns of cars, rain-soaked roads among thinned palm forest. ..
We did not feel the full tension of the situation, although we understood that the launch of just one R-12 would begin a worldwide hell. Each rocket with a capacity of one megaton is 50 Hiroshima. The Cubans, seeing our power, happily persuaded: "Comrade-comrade, press-press, launch a rocket! Let's show these Americans!" They were very offended that we would not hit the States with our club. There was no order. And we waited.
Company International
Back in the Union, we were told that we must be wary of the components of rocket fueling, otherwise "there will be no children." I remember standing at the guard post of the fuel depot, and the sun was baking the tanks, and yellow clouds of gas periodically puffed out through the safety valves...
Meanwhile, information reached us that after the installation of our missiles in Florida, a wild panic began. The entire population of the peninsula rushed deep into America with fear. Of course, it will hurt anyone here when nuclear missiles are ready under your nose...
All this did not last so long, but I remember it as if through a fog. Even on the approach to Cuba, I began to have arrhythmia of the heart. True, I didn’t understand what was happening to me - everything was shaking, pounding, my pulse was crazy ... My entire Cuban epic passed in such a state of health. My comrades were not in the best condition either. Perhaps the conditions of the sea passage affected, perhaps the tropical climate with a sharp difference in night and day temperatures. Constant contacts with fantastic insects did not add to the mood - they are hefty, poisonous and disgusting there. So I didn’t really frolic in Cuba, I spent more time in a tent. Memories remain vague and heavy.
Life proceeded in the location of the company, in which there was a complete Soviet international: Ossetians, Armenians, foremen-Chechens, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Tajiks, and of the Slav brothers in great numbers. They lived together. They had no losses. Nobody got sick. Even without lice. Leisure time was spent as best they could, and in fact it was replaced by political information, which was carried out by the political officer or battalion commander: the situation is difficult, but stable, and therefore soon - home! We did not see the famous Cuban cigars, and there were only a couple of smokers in our company. We were not given any money, but the soldiers' salaries were already received in full in the Union.
"Give them a rustle!"
There was no work for our company - they stood ready for the entire Cuban special operation.
On October 28, we received the order to roll up and load onto ships. On October 29, our regiment was removed from combat duty.
We arrived at the port of Nikolaev in early December. They felt like winners, rejoiced that they returned alive and healthy. "Give them a rustle!".
Three days later, the radio operators said that on the Voice of America radio, they conveyed congratulations to Lieutenant Colonel Gerasimov on his return and new intercession on combat duty. I don’t think that our command was pleased with such awareness of the enemy ...
At home I didn't say anything about Cuba. I am very sorry that I soon lost my flashlight, issued before the operation "Anadyr" - the only thing that remained my memory of the Island of Freedom.
Next year, Permian Alexander Georgievich Gorensky will turn 80. And during the Caribbean crisis, the 24-year-old lieutenant technician ended up in Cuba as part of the 584th separate aviation engineering regiment. Dislocation - base "Granma". The main firing sector is in the northeast and north directions, the additional one is in the direction of the island of Pinos.
The memoirs of Alexander Georgievich about the October days of 1962 were recorded by our correspondent in Perm, Konstantin Bakharev.
FEES. Operation Checkered Shirt
In the spring of 1962, my colleagues and I in 642 OAPIB (separate fighter-bomber air battalion), stationed at the Martynovka airfield of the Odessa military district, were offered a business trip to "a country with a maritime subtropical climate." I agreed. Five people were sent from our regiment: Major Anatoly Andreevich Orlov, Lieutenant Vladimir Borisov, Senior Lieutenants Sergei Cherepushkin, Valery Zaichikov, and myself.
They issued uniforms - a sand-colored technical suit, boots with thick soles with high lacing - berets, a khaki panama with wide brim and sand-colored T-shirts. They also gave out civilian clothes: shirts, a hat, a light raincoat, shoes and suits. The shirts were all the same style - short-sleeved and plaid. Someone joked that we were members of Operation Checkered Shirt. It took root, and we no longer called the business trip in a different way.
During the training camp, I saw that girls from the library were burning books in the courtyard of the headquarters. They were ordered to write off the most dilapidated copies. I selected for myself "Quiet Flows the Don", "Twelve Chairs", "Walking Through the Torments", a collection of O Henry and Nekrasov. I took the books with me. Then, in Cuba, they were borrowed from me to read, and in the end the books sold out. Only "Quiet Don" remained. And when there was nothing to read, we dismantled his volumes into notebooks, numbered them, and so we all read - one after another.
SEA TRIP. Aviaexport containers
The regiment arrived in Baltiysk, where it began to load on the ship "Berdyansk". We settled in the hold, and on the deck, in addition to truck cranes and other apparently civilian equipment, we installed two huge containers with the inscriptions "Aviaexport". Four camp kitchens were hidden in one. Food was prepared for us in them and then lowered into the hold in thermoses. The second container was a toilet. During the day it was possible to walk only 2-3 people. If the number of visitors is increased, then someone might notice that water is constantly flowing from the air container. At night, the toilet was allowed to visit without restrictions.
September 16, 1962 set sail. Went 18 days. As we approached Cuba, American warplanes began flying around us. First, large twin-engine, then fighters appeared. They made each flight according to a certain program: they descended very low (up to 15-20 meters above the sea), entered from different courses - from the stern and bow across the course of the ship, then along the course - also from the bow and stern. They flew only during the day, but very often: up to six times a day. We took a lot of pictures, you could see how the photo hatches were opening, sometimes you could even see the brilliance of the optics. After the flight, some pilots waved affably and showed that they were flying home, to the west.
For a possible rebuff, if the Americans decide to search the ship, four platoons were created, armed with knives, pistols and grenades. Two platoons are on duty in the bow and stern cabins, two are in reserve. In addition, machine guns and machine guns are in reserve, if it comes to them. The platoons were mostly made up of officers, but there were also soldiers, who were the most physically strong and athletic.
DISLOCATION. "Black Widow"
Our regiment was stationed at the former American military base, now it was called "Granma". In addition to us, there was an anti-aircraft missile division, a regiment of Mi-4 transport helicopters, and in early October an artillery division appeared with four 80-mm guns. The regiment commander was Colonel Alexei Ivanovich Frolov, the chief of staff was Lieutenant Colonel Damir Maksudovich Ilyasov. The structure is simple: two combat squadrons, which were engaged in guiding and launching missiles, and one technical squadron, which was supposed to prepare missiles for firing.
We were armed with FKR-1, front-line cruise missiles capable of carrying high-explosive and nuclear charges. The missiles were transported in plywood-lined containers with the inscription "Aviaexport" in Russian and English. Our regiment had 48 of these missiles. And at the PRTB - a mobile missile and technical base - nuclear warheads for missiles were stored. We had to build a storage facility for them with a special temperature regime.
Unloaded in the port of the city of Mariel. After unloading, the chief of staff ordered me to lead the guard guarding five containers with missiles. They were immediately taken from the pier into the jungle so that no one could see. I was scared because I was afraid that it was full of snakes. On the spot we were instructed by a Cuban. I tried to understand it with the help of a pocket phrase book, but I did not understand anything. The containers stood on a clearing area of approximately 200x200 meters. I posted three. The night passed quietly.
In the morning, one of the Cuban trailer drivers (they were used to transport containers) came up to our car - a gas truck, and suddenly jumped up and shouted: "Negro! Negro!" I look, on the floor of the "gazik" there is a black tarantula-type spider, large, five to six centimeters in diameter. I was not afraid of tarantulas, there are many of them near Odessa, and they are harmless. I took a rag from the driver, grabbed this spider through it and threw it out of the car. The negro spider furiously trampled underfoot. And then we were told that this spider, the "black widow", can kill a person with one bite.
THE BEGINNING OF THE CRISIS. Waiting for the bombing
On October 25, 1962, the regimental chief of staff announced that the Americans would bomb us. After that, of course, we had a slight jitters. The Americans flew very low over us, five or six times a day. In the evenings they came from the west, from the setting sun. They are not visible, so they sneaked up. The MiGs began chasing them, driving them aside. And when their reconnaissance plane was shot down, the Americans began to appear less often.
We lived in anticipation of war. They were inclined to believe that hostilities would still begin. But we were ready for it. We were told by the commanders that, according to all estimates, after the start of the war, we will live for half an hour, no more. Then we will be covered. But during this time, our regiment could fire 3-4 missiles with nuclear warheads. So from Florida, namely there we were aimed, there would also be little left. Our regiment would have dealt with it in 20 minutes. And the second regiment with the FKR would have smashed all the American troops on Guantanamo Bay.
NIGHT GUEST. Salvo on a submarine
At night, we were awakened by a volley from the artillery battalion, commanded by senior lieutenant Sergei Yakovlev, we called him Yashka the artilleryman. A very determined and meticulous officer. Before that, at his request, we made a raft and dragged it across the sea. The gunners aimed at it, spent the whole day and then smashed the raft with one shot. And that night, the starley looked through binoculars, looked (he told us this later), saw a silhouette. Quietly woke up the staff. He personally aimed all four of his guns and gasped in one gulp! There, he says, sparks, fire. Well, it was not in vain that he set up sights on our raft. Hit without a miss.
In the afternoon divers arrived from Havana. And we also put on masks, fins and began to dive. And there, about two hundred meters from the shore, there are pieces of metal at the bottom. The submarine approached at night. And our starley artilleryman slammed her. She apparently sank nearby. The divers then lifted the corpses onto their boat. I counted seven dead people, they were stacked at the stern.
MORE NIGHT GUESTS. Post attack
We had about fifteen positions in the regiment that had to be guarded. And almost every night sentries fired. Apparently, someone really wanted to determine what our regiment was armed with. The attacks began. Cubans were standing nearby, their sentry was shot dead at night. They also attacked the post where I was the head of the guard.
At about 11 pm I went to take a nap. And suddenly a long burst from a machine gun! You can hear the bullets clicking on the leaves of the trees. I shouted: "Sentry, with a gun!" They rushed into the trenches and returned fire. They were beaten with machine guns and light machine guns. There was the sound of a running engine, like a truck, and soon it died away. My assistant, Sergeant Alexei Fedorchuk, wanted to pursue them. I forbade. It is hard to see at night, maybe there is an ambush.
In the morning we examined the place from where they shot at us. It turned out, from a dirt road, about a hundred meters. The fire was fired through a small forest. It can be said at random, but in our direction. We found a bunch of shell casings with a caliber of about 12.7. They gave it to the special officers who arrived in the morning.
LIFE. Sharks for lunch
The rear units of the regiment were still in the USSR. We ate dry rations, so we learned to fish. We went spearfishing with friends. A net was also found here, they put it at the mouth of the Santa Laura River. Once, four tons of mackerel were taken out at one time. And then the network disappeared. They found her, all torn apart, near the shore. Two sharks are entangled in it. We also ate these sharks, and threw the net away.
At that time in the USSR I received 107 rubles a month. In Cuba, we were given a salary of 195 percent of our home wage. That is actually twice as much. In addition, the Cuban authorities paid us three hundred pesos a month extra as military advisers. But they gave this money for only two months. Who wanted to, and received - in rubles or pesos, to choose from. Pesos in hand, and rubles went to the passbook. You could also take checks from Vneshtorgbank. Many, including me, gave part of their allowance to their families even before they were sent according to the report. In Cuba, I received sixty percent of the salary, the rest went to my wife and daughter. And I, like others, made money transfers to the family.
Soldiers and sergeants lived worse. They received ten rubles. Although they also doubled the payments. But the soldiers found a way out. Our regiment brought ten tons of caustic soda with them. For what - is unknown. And in Cuba at that time there was a terrible shortage of soap and detergents. And our soldiers began to trade this caustic soda. The case took on such a scale that from the early morning at our checkpoint there were already queues of cubans. They exchanged soda for money and food.
CONTACTS. From love to hate
When we arrived in Cuba, the Cubans were ready to carry us in their arms. In places where an entrance fee was required, we were let through without payment. In bars, the first drink for Russians was free. The Cubans did not hesitate to say that now "they will show" the Americans. And when it became clear that we would not fight, their mood changed dramatically. At our Granma base, leaflets appeared in Russian calling not to obey the orders of the commanders, but to declare war on the United States and land on the American mainland. In Havana, women threw rotten tomatoes at Anatoly Repin and me. Tolya wanted to "figure it out", I kept him. We then cleaned ourselves up, but still the clothes had to be thrown away.
DEPARTURE. A Farewell to Arms
When Khrushchev and Kennedy nevertheless agreed and the removal of ballistic missiles from Cuba began, transport was allocated from our regiment. For several days I was the head of the KrAZ, which carried cargo from former combat positions to the port. After I visited these positions, I had a difficult impression. I was struck by the scope and quality of the work performed: these were halls of not very deep (almost on the surface) occurrence with powerful arched vaults and gates with a meter thickness. But all this was so barbarously destroyed, plundered, smashed, that all that remained was to lament.
Mikhail Valeryevich Gavrilov, co-author of the recently published book "White Spots of the Caribbean Crisis" (together with V.A. Bubnov), told Motherland little-known details of the key episode of the Caribbean crisis. The American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down in the sky over the Cuban city of Banes on October 27, 1962 by the crew of the Soviet S-75 anti-aircraft missile system. The guidance officer was Lieutenant Alexei Artemovich Ryapenko. Here is how he describes it in the book:
"...Major Gerchenov ordered me: "Destroy the target in three bursts!" I switched all three firing channels to the BR mode and pressed the "Start" button of the first channel. The missile left the launcher. After that, I reported: "There is a capture!" The first rocket had already been flying for 9-10 seconds when the commander ordered: “Second, launch!” I pressed the “Start” button of the second channel. When the first rocket exploded, a cloud appeared on the screens. I reported: “First, detonation. Goal meeting. The target has been hit!" After the second missile was detonated, the target began to lose altitude sharply, and I reported: "Second, detonation. Target destroyed!"
Major I.M. Gerchenov reported to the regimental command post that target N33 had been destroyed. He told me that I worked calmly and confidently. Then we got out of the cabin. All the officers and operators gathered on the site. They picked me up and started throwing me up - it was easy, since I weighed only 56 kilograms. Looking back, I can say: we fulfilled our duty, unconditionally and to the end. Then I could not know that the American plane we shot down would be the only one, that this event would be a turning point in resolving the Caribbean crisis. It’s just that in those years, our entire generation was brought up in such a way that we were ready to die for our Motherland.”
The U-2 aircraft was designed and manufactured with the latest technology. In particular, it was equipped with a device for detecting Soviet radars. Mikhail Gavrilov asks the question: why did the experienced pilot Rudolf Anderson, knowing that he was "under the gun", not begin to maneuver, but continued to move on the intended course? The authors of the book "White Spots of the Caribbean Crisis" believe that the American command deliberately sent Anderson to certain death by disabling the security system of his aircraft in advance. The attack on U-2 was supposed to be the signal for the start of a massive air strike on Cuba:
President John F. Kennedy only after the latest American plane was destroyed did he realize that the United States in Cuba was opposed not by scattered groups of Soviet soldiers and officers, but by a combat-ready group of troops. And if the United States strikes at Cuba, there will be an irreversible reaction around the world.
The authors of the book are convinced that Georgy Voronkov, commander of the 27th Air Defense Division, Ivan Gerchenov, commander of the division, and Alexei Ryapenko, guidance officer, played one of the key roles in resolving the Caribbean crisis. Rodina correspondents turned to Alexei Artemovich Ryapenko, who lives in Sochi, for additional details:
- The book says that you worked on the goal "calmly and confidently." Can you decipher?
Confidence comes when you know your business perfectly. But I graduated from the Tambov Aviation School in 1960. But after graduation, I was sent to the anti-aircraft missile forces, so I had to learn a new specialty. On shooting everything worked out in the best way, the calmness that you ask about came. Although I was the youngest officer in the division. On October 27, everything was even simpler than at the exercises.
- What did you think about when you clicked on the "Start" button?
There is nothing to think about, all actions are scheduled in seconds. The detection and shooting process is quite simple. We immediately grabbed the plane on the radar screen, the reconnaissance station led it. And as soon as he approached the detection zone, she handed it over to us. At the command of the commander, I pressed "Start". Regular situation even despite the fact that it was raining. The plane was moving at a low speed - somewhere around 800 kilometers per hour. So there were no problems.
- Was there a gala dinner for a successful shooting?
What are you speaking about! We didn't feel like it would end there. On the contrary, we feared retribution. So there was no time for treats.
No. Yes, I would refuse. Or he simply told them: "Guys, what you did was your initiative. And we did our job, our duty - we helped the Cubans defend their revolutionary gains. There's someone who wins ...".
On October 27, 1962, the US and the USSR were on the brink of a nuclear conflict. Not having time to take a break from the Second World War, the world could start a third and, probably, the last war. We tell why the USSR needed to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba, could Castro be on the side of the Americans, and how Nikita Khrushchev bluffed.
What did fourteen-year-old Castro ask Roosevelt to do?
On his first international visit, Fidel Castro traveled to the United States. His trip was part of Operation Pravda - bringing the truth about the Cuban revolution to the general public. Castro's popularity in the US was enormous.
Fidel Castro. Photo: wikimedia.org
For example, at a school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, Castro so impressed the students by talking to them in church that they fought over possession of an unextinguished cigar, which Castro carelessly left on the lectern. At Princeton University, a group of Fidel undergrads are in their arms around the stadium.
Castro spent his last day in the US at Harvard, where he was hosted by the McGeorge Bundy Faculty of Arts and Sciences. At the meeting, Castro was so frank that he spoke about his unsuccessful attempt to enter this prestigious university.
Later, speaking to members of the Harvard community, Bundy declared that the university was ready to correct the mistake of 1948 and accept Castro. I wonder what the world would be like if Castro accepted this offer?
Pupils of the school in Queens where Fidel's son studied. Photo: nknews.org By the way, Castro himself was loyal to the United States. Back in 1940, when he was 14, he wrote a letter to US President Roosevelt asking him to send him a $10 bill because he had never seen it.
But American politicians reacted coolly to Fidel. US President Eisenhower did not find time to accept Castro, preferring a game of golf to the revolutionary.
Surpass Stalin
And if Fidel did not find support in the USA, then the USSR readily extended a hand to the revolutionary, hoping that he would move from socialism to communism. Moreover, Fidel's brother Raul had been looking for contacts with the Soviets for a long time.
Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev. Photo: tvc.ru Nikita Khrushchev was especially supportive of the Cubans. Dmitry Polyansky, a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee, later spoke about the reasons for such attention:
“Comrade Khrushchev was glad that he succeeded in what Stalin could not do - penetrate into Latin America. Firstly, penetration into the Latin American region was not the goal of our policy, and secondly, this meant that our country had to undertake obligations to carry out military deliveries across the ocean at a distance of 15,000 km ”(R resolution from the minutes of the 214th meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee on April 23, 1959, fund 3, inventory 65, file 871, Archive of the President of Russia).
With this decision, Nikita Sergeevich brought both powers to the brink of thermonuclear war.
KGB: US is preparing a nuclear attack on the USSR
On June 16, 1960, the KGB received a secret document sent from the CIA representative to NATO to the US presidential administration, and on June 29, the KGB chairman presented a very disturbing report to the Soviet leader.
It said that the Pentagon, based on the data received, believes that the USSR currently does not have enough missiles to destroy NATO strategic bases.
Khrushchev speaks to reporters about the incident with the American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Photo: pravmir.ru But this advantage is temporary, and after a while the Soviets will accumulate a sufficient number of missiles. In the meantime, the States can effectively use their bomber aircraft to destroy Soviet missile bases and other military installations:
“The current alignment of forces between the US and the USSR in the military field allows the United States to count on success in the event of war. After some time, the situation will change in favor of the Soviet Union. Proceeding precisely from these premises, the leading circles of the Pentagon would like to unleash a preventive war against the Soviet Union. This document was marked: “Comrade personally reported. Khrushchev N. S. June 29, 1960 A. Shelepin. Shelepin in the Central Committee, June 29, 1960, file 84 124, volume 12, pp. 237-238, Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service).
"Stamping missiles like sausages"
Mutual intimidation became the main policy of the time. Khrushchev openly bluffed: “Let the Pentagon not forget that, as recent tests have shown, we have missiles capable of hitting exactly a given square at a distance of 13 thousand kilometers.”
Dummies of missiles at the parade on Red Square. Photo: wikimedia.org Nikita Sergeevich is colorful that "... Soviet factories can produce missiles like sausages." In fact, things were much worse.
Production of the first batch of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) was halted after design flaws were discovered in the first batch of less than 35 units. A more advanced R-16 missile was in development, but it took years to produce enough missiles to achieve parity with the United States.
At the same time, the Americans did not lag behind the USSR. Assistant Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatrick: "Our country possesses a nuclear retaliatory force of such deadly power that any move by an adversary to force it into action would be suicidal for him."
In this speech, Khrushchev saw a personal challenge and ordered to test the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever created. On October 30, 1961, a "Tsar bomb" with a capacity of more than 50 megatons, dropped from a height of 10.5 km over the Soviet part of the Arctic, caused a mushroom cloud 67 km high.
Hedgehog for Uncle Sam
The tests, according to the KGB report, deterred the United States from further advancing its plans for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. A source believed to be reliable reported that between June 6 and 12, 1961, the United States had decided to launch a nuclear attack on Soviet territory in September 1961.
Rodion Malinovsky. Photo: wikimedia.org When Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky read out a report on the state of testing of R-16 missiles capable of carrying a one-ton warhead, he noted that the United States had four times as many such missiles. After listening to the report, Khrushchev: "Why not put a hedgehog in Uncle Sam's pants?".
According to the Secretary General, the USSR will need at least 10 years to produce enough R-16 missiles that would be comparable in nuclear power to US missiles. Therefore, Khrushchev suggested that Cuba could become a valuable base for Soviet medium-range missiles, which Moscow had in sufficient numbers.
Nuclear safeguards for Castro
From the moment when Castro took a course towards rapprochement with the USSR, the Americans have repeatedly tried to destroy his regime. Diversions failed one after another, and the only guaranteed way was a direct invasion, which Fidel feared most of all. And he saw the Soviet troops on the island as the only guarantor of the regime's safety.
Rocket R-14. Photo: wikimedia.org Late in the evening, at one of his Moscow dachas, Khrushchev gathered the members of the Presidium and, over tea and dryers, announced: “The attack on Cuba is prepared,” he said. “The balance of power is unfavorable for us, and the only way to save Cuba is to place missiles there.”
Nikita Sergeevich said that his decision was made on the basis of an analysis of the reaction of the American president. “Kennedy is smart and will not start a thermonuclear war if our military missiles are there, like the ones the Americans have placed in Turkey. American missiles in Turkey are aimed at us and scare us. Our missiles will also be aimed at the US, even if we have fewer of them. But if the missiles are placed close to the United States, they will be even more scared.”
The rockets weren't supposed to take off
In his introduction, Khrushchev stressed that the missiles "under no circumstances" would be used: "Any idiot can start a war, but it is impossible to win this war. Therefore, the missiles have only one purpose - to scare them, to deter them, so that they correctly assess the situation.
Nikita Khrushchev inspects the wreckage of a downed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Photo: wikimedia.org The USSR military planned to send two types of ballistic missiles to Cuba - R-12 with a range of 1700 kilometers and R-14 with a range of 4500 km. The missiles were to be equipped with warheads with a capacity of 1 megaton of trinitrotoluene.
According to Malinovsky, the armed forces can supply 24 R-12 medium-range missiles and 16 R-14 intermediate-range missiles. Some of the missiles were removed from units stationed in Ukraine and in the European part of Russia, aimed at targets in Europe.
Maximum secrecy
In addition to missiles, a significant grouping of troops was to be transferred to the island: four motorized units, two tank battalions, a squadron of MIG-21 fighters, forty-two Il-28 light bombers, two cruise missile units, several batteries of anti-aircraft guns and 12 units of S-75 missiles (with 144 launchers). Each motorized unit consisted of 2,500 men, and two tank battalions were equipped with the latest Soviet T-55 tanks.
American patrol aircraft Lockheed P-2 "Neptune" over the Soviet ship. Photo: wikimedia.org All this plus missiles had to be transferred over 11 thousand kilometers and continue to keep this secret on an island located at a distance of 150 kilometers from the coast of the United States.
For Operation Anadyr, 85 vessels were prepared and loaded in 6 different ports. Their captains did not know where to sail - all directions were kept in secret packages hidden in a safe. It was possible to open it only after leaving the Atlantic and in the presence of a KGB officer. In the event of a threat of capture by foreign military, the captain was to destroy all documents and flood the ship.
Even the commander of the Soviet military contingent in Cuba was disguised with a different surname. Looking at the passport prepared for him, General Issa Pliev was at a loss: “What is this? It must be some kind of mistake!” The photo was his, but the name was wrong. “I am not Pavlov,” he said.
telephone pole road
The Americans suspected Soviet preparations - their U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flew over Cuba and in its environs, and soon knew about some of the positions of Soviet missiles. But which of them are false and which are not, they could not say with full certainty. The first pictures were taken on October 14, 1962.
The first picture of Soviet missiles from 14 October. Photo: wikimedia.org Therefore, Kennedy decided to abandon the strike on the Soviet troops, explaining: "It looks like we will have all the problems of Pearl Harbor, but we will not solve the issue."
By the way, the positions where the missiles were delivered could be traced due to the fact that trailers, not adapted for driving through the winding narrow streets of Cuban cities, delivered from the Soviet Union to transport missiles, left behind fallen telegraph poles and broken mailboxes.
In addition to intercontinental ballistic missiles, tactical ones, the Luna, were delivered to Cuba. The first warheads for missiles and nuclear bombs were brought by the Indigirka ship on October 4, 1962. In total, the ship carried a cargo equivalent to 45,500 kilotons of TNT, 20 times the impact power of the bombs dropped by Allied aircraft on Germany during World War II.
One step away from disaster
October 27 almost became the last day in the history of mankind. In order to prevent Soviet missiles from entering Cuba, the United States established a blockade of the island, in which more than 180 ships participated.
The military received a special order from the Minister of Defense of the country: upon detection of any unidentified submarine, American sailors were to force it to surface and identify itself.
Diesel-electric submarine of project 641. Photo: flot.com At that time, Soviet submarines with nuclear torpedoes on board were at sea. One of them - B-59 (project 641) was discovered by American destroyers. The submarine, which did not want to float, began to be bombarded with depth charges.
Captain Savitsky thought that the war had begun, and suggested launching a nuclear torpedo at the ships: "We will blow them up, we will all die, but we will sink all their ships." The use of this weapon required the consent of three senior officers: the commander and the political officer were in favor, and the captain of the 2nd rank Vasily Arkhipov was against. Instead of launching an atomic torpedo, the submarine signaled "Stop provocations." The situation was discharged, and the B-59 began to rise to the surface.
At this time, a tropical storm broke out on the island, Soviet and Cuban officers tried to maintain high combat readiness - water could jam communication devices. And then they received a message that a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was approaching the positions of the missiles. According to one version, the division commander, without waiting for an order from the headquarters, orders to open fire on the aircraft.
The rocket explodes next to the U-2, the plane is thrown to the ground, the pilot dies. Fidel Castro believes that the moment of invasion is at hand and telegraphs to Moscow that the Cuban people are ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause of victory over US imperialism and proposes a preemptive nuclear strike against the US.
Permission
John F. Kennedy had considerable courage to reject the military's plan for an immediate attack on Cuba and trust in Khrushchev's sanity. On the night of October 28, 1962, his brother Robert met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and said that John F. Kennedy was ready to give guarantees of non-aggression and the speedy lifting of the blockade from Cuba if the Russians removed the missiles.
As for Turkey, Robert assured: "If this is the only obstacle to reaching the settlement mentioned above, then the president does not see insurmountable difficulties in resolving the issue." (Dobrynin A.F. Purely confidential. Ambassador to Washington under six US presidents (1962−1986). M.: Author, 1996. S. 72−73).
Nikita Khrushchev and John Kennedy. Photo: wikimedia.org Fearing any "surprises" and disruption of negotiations, Khrushchev forbade the use of anti-aircraft weapons against American aircraft, and also ordered the return to airfields of all Soviet aircraft patrolling the Caribbean Sea. The General Secretary also wrote two letters to Kennedy. In the first, which was even broadcast on the radio, he confirmed that the message had reached Moscow. In the second - that he regards this message as an agreement to the condition of the USSR on the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba - to remove missiles from Turkey.
This agreement was nearly thwarted by the Cubans themselves. To ensure that the Khrushchev-Kennedy deal would not affect Cuba's security, Cuban Foreign Minister Raul Rao informed the new Cuban representative to the UN, Carlos Lechuga, on November 20 that "we have tactical atomic weapons that must be preserved."
When this became known in the Kremlin, a panic arose there - the demarche of the Cubans threatened to disrupt all agreements. But the situation was resolved. True, Khrushchev never forgave Castro for this trick: the Secretary General shouted that under no circumstances would the Soviet Union sign a military agreement with such an irresponsible person.
Consequences
He also survived Khrushchev and Kennedy. Nikita Khrushchev was removed on October 14, 1964, the coup was bloodless. He was summoned from Pitsunda to a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, and after that to the Plenum of the Central Committee, depriving him of all his posts. Among all the accusations brought against the Secretary General, there was support for Castro.
Nikita Khrushchev at the dacha. Photo: wikimedia.org Dmitry Polyansky, a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, argued: “Ask any of our marshals, generals, and they will say that plans for military penetration into South America are nonsense, fraught with enormous danger of war. If, for the sake of helping one of the Latin American countries, they were the first to launch a nuclear strike on the United States, then not only would they endanger themselves; then everyone would have recoiled from us.”
And on November 22, 1963, a bullet hit Kennedy. Who was behind the assassination attempt is still unknown. But then the world held its breath, because the assassin of President Lee Harvey Oswald was an adherent of Marxism, married to a Russian girl Marina, whom he met in Minsk during a three-year stay in the Soviet Union.
November 22, 1963, the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Photo: dayonline.ru Few understood that Khrushchev needed John F. Kennedy, about which he himself said: “Will there be an invasion of Cuba? I am not a prophet and cannot make predictions or assurances. We cannot vouch for the imperialist camp; it does not consult with us. I only know that during his tenure in the White House it will not be easy for Kennedy to renounce his commitments to not invade Cuba.
These obligations will bind Kennedy, they will bind the US government. There are still two years left before the presidential elections. Everything points to the fact that Kennedy will be elected to a second term. This means that for another 6 years the US President will be bound by public commitments not to invade Cuba.”
56 years ago, the world was numb with horror, watching the crisis between the US and the USSR over Cuba, called the Caribbean. There was every reason for this: for the first time, the planet stumbled over the threshold beyond which a nuclear catastrophe of mankind loomed.
The US supported the regime of Fulgencio Batista according to the usual geopolitical principle "he is, of course, a scoundrel, but our scoundrel." A typical comprador, President Batista, who was friends with the American mafia, established orders in Cuba that suit the United States quite well. Batista's Cuba was a reliable "American sugar bowl".
But on January 1, 1959, Batista was forever thrown out of the country by a revolution led by Fidel Castro. Fidel and his comrades took power without any help from Moscow - they, of course, were aware of the events, but they believed that nothing would come of the revolutionaries in the Caribbean underbelly of the United States and the game was not worth the meetings. However, Fidel succeeded very well. And when he nationalized the sugar industry and other enterprises owned by the Americans, causing the wrath and economic sanctions of Washington, the Kremlin realized that the "socialist camp" could not lose such a tasty booty. And Soviet economic, humanitarian and military aid poured into Cuba.
The latter helped to defeat in April 1961 the CIA-equipped landing of Cuban counter-revolutionaries (“Brigade 2506”) in the Bay of Pigs on the beach of Playa Giron. Fidel himself took part in the battle, hitting one of the enemy ships with a shot from a Soviet self-propelled gun SU-100 (according to the national legend). And the T-34-85 tanks received from the Union drove the American destroyers off the coast, trying to ensure the evacuation of the remnants of the landing force. More than 1,200 opponents of Castro were taken prisoner.
Having suffered a disgraceful fiasco at Playa Giron, the CIA had not yet guessed that the Shats had even bigger problems ahead in the growing battle between Washington and Moscow for world domination. And the "sugar bowl" has the most direct relation to them.
WEIGHT WARRANTY
The Soviet leadership did not see Cuba as a "sugar bowl" at all, although Soviet purchases of Cuban sugar compensated Havana for the rejection of them by the angry States. Moscow regarded the gift presented to it by Fidel's "barbudos" ("bearded men") as an opportunity to acquire an overvalued military-strategic foothold under the very nose of enemy No. 1.
First of all, the "barbudos" were armed - as they say, to the teeth. Suffice it to say that, thanks to generous Soviet supplies, by the spring of 1962, Cuba had a tank fleet that surpassed that of the rest of Latin America. Plus dozens of MiGs and other weapons, as well as torpedo boats and submarine hunters. So Fidel had something to respond to the new intrigues of "gusanos" ("worms"), as the pro-American "counter" was contemptuously dubbed in Cuba.
And I must say that Fidel had a lot of "gusanos" - wealthy Cubans and part of the intelligentsia were far from enthusiastic about the requisitions and other excesses of the revolution. And Castro was afraid that next time the Island of Freedom would have to face not only mercenaries and the "fifth column", but directly with the mighty US military machine, which was guaranteed to threaten the Cuban revolution with defeat. Therefore, he agreed to Khrushchev's proposal to deploy Soviet troops equipped with nuclear weapons in Cuba. This seemed to be a much more powerful guarantee of independence than even hundreds of "thirty-fours".
The Kremlin did not think about Castro's interests at all, but about its own. It just so happened that the actions of Havana successfully fit into the general plot of the global confrontation with the United States. The implementation of the Soviet plan would have made it possible to significantly “correct” in favor of Moscow the strategic nuclear imbalance between the USSR and the USA that took place at that time. 
The steamer "Admiral Nakhimov" is heading from Sevastopol to Cuba (photo from the personal archive of the author)
THERE WAS NO BALANCE
The elimination of the US nuclear monopoly in 1949 meant, of course, that the USSR's hopes for a worldwide Pax Americana would not come true. And not only will he establish himself in his own Pax Sovietica (with the well-known Yugoslav, and later Chinese and Albanian exceptions), but he will also launch an offensive to the West in the areas of his former colonial rule. However, the beginning of the production of nuclear weapons by the Soviet Union did not in itself entail the establishment of a balance with the United States in this critical area. And by the early 1960s, the United States, which had a much more powerful economic potential than the USSR, still relied on a serious superiority in the combat capabilities of its nuclear triad. Simply put, the Americans could bring down many times more nuclear warheads and bombs on the Union than vice versa. This was facilitated by the fact that the Yankees had numerous bases near the Soviet borders.
The Single Integrated Operational Plan for the use of nuclear weapons against the USSR (Single Integrated Operational Plan) as amended in 1961 (SIOP-2), adopted by the Pentagon, provided for the use of 6 thousand nuclear charges in a nuclear war against the USSR, including tactical ones.
It is easy to guess that similar planning was carried out in the USSR - GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky conveyed some information about this to the West. And, most likely, it clearly testified to the backwardness of the Soviet Union.
The ratio in strategic nuclear power by mid-1962 was as follows: 
This table does not take into account the powerful tactical aircraft of the Air Force and the carrier-based aircraft of the US Navy, which, given the deployment of its forces at the forefront, could also be considered strategic in relation to the USSR. The deployment of 105 medium-range ballistic missiles "Tor" and "Jupiter" by the Americans in the territory of Great Britain, Italy and Turkey was of particular concern to the Soviet leadership.
The Soviet Union also had R-5M, R-12 and R-14 medium-range ballistic missiles, and there were even many more of them than the Americans - 522 pieces. However, all of them were aimed at the objects of a potential enemy in Europe and Asia and did not pose a direct threat to the US continental territory. Theoretically, when deployed, say, in Chukotka, they could hit objects in Alaska, but there was nothing strategically particularly valuable for the attack. On the other hand, American medium-range missiles stationed in NATO countries targeted cities in the European part of the USSR, including Moscow. Due to the short flight time - about 10 minutes, these missiles could deliver nuclear death faster than intercontinental missiles launched from the North American continent.
It was precisely from the point of view of seeking an asymmetric response to this threat that Cuba could become that Soviet “unsinkable nuclear aircraft carrier” (more precisely, “missile carrier”) that would make the American leadership feel the same anxiety that it made the Kremlin’s headache. According to the principle "Mohammed will go to the mountain."
TO HAVANA THROUGH NOVOCHERKASSK
The fundamental decision to send Soviet nuclear weapons to Cuba was made on May 24, 1962, for which an extended meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU was held - as the Politburo was called under Khrushchev. The Cuban side got acquainted with the tempting offer of the USSR during a visit to Havana a week later by a delegation of the highest Soviet party and military nomenklatura, headed by the future figure in the corruption cotton scandals, Sharaf Rashidov. It was he who brought the Soviet plan to Fidel, having received the required consent.
In June, the secret “Treaty between the Government of the Republic of Cuba and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the deployment of Soviet Armed Forces on the territory of the Republic of Cuba” was initialed by the Cuban Minister of War, brother of Fidel Castro, who flew to Moscow. However, the kaleidoscope of events evolved so quickly that the finally agreed version of the treaty was never signed. All practical decisions were made by Moscow and Havana at the operational-verbal level, in an administrative order.
It should be noted that the tense international situation that has developed due to the global rivalry between the US and the USSR was further complicated for Moscow by internal turmoil. Participation in this rivalry required enormous costs, and ordinary Soviet citizens paid the bills. Despite the fact that, in general, the standard of living of the population of the USSR during the years of the implementation of the Khrushchev seven-year plan (adopted in 1956) slowly but increased, the KGB also noted the growth of anti-government sentiments. So, in the order of the Chairman of the KGB Vladimir Semichastny No. 00175, dated July 28, 1962, it was stated that “mass riots occurred in some cities of the country, accompanied by pogroms of administrative buildings, destruction of public property, attacks on government officials and other outrages.”
The peak of the unrest was the tragic events in Novocherkassk. On June 1, 1962, the government announced to the population an increase in prices for meat, meat products, butter and milk - by an average of 30 percent. In many ways, such a "gift" to the people was associated with the cost of helping Cuba. Just before this increase, the workers of the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant - and not only them - were reduced wages, cutting labor rates. The government hoped that the Soviet people, to whom it created yet another temporary difficulties, would patriotically support all these wise decisions on the path to building communism.
Instead, however, the workers suddenly rebelled. The trigger for unrest was mocking advice from the management of the enterprise: "There is no money for meat and sausage, eat pies with liver." This advice on the degree of homespun wit can be considered a remake of the glamorous statement of the wife of the French king Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, due to the fact that the mob demanded bread. The queen quite sincerely recommended that poor subjects continue to eat exclusively cakes.
But from the point of view of the KGB, the indignation of the Soviet proletarians was characterized as "slander on the financial situation of the working people", i.e. as if on themselves.
As you know, the unrest in Novocherkassk was suppressed by troops and state security agencies. As a result of opening fire on a workers' demonstration, which came out under the anti-Soviet slogan "Meat, butter, wage increases!" and portraits of Lenin, 23 people were killed. Seven more "instigators" were shot by the verdict of the fairest court in the world, and more than a hundred went to think about their behavior in the camps. Under Boris Yeltsin, all the victims of the "Novocherkassk" repressions were finally rehabilitated.
Army General Issa Pliev, Commander of the North Caucasian Military District, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, played an important role in the brutal massacre of the participants in the unrest in Novocherkassk. He was instructed to lead the future group of Soviet troops in Cuba. Nikita Sergeevich had no doubts that such a decisive commander in all respects would not flinch if this group had to use nuclear weapons against the United States. 
US Air Force RF-101 Voodoo reconnaissance aircraft recorded on November 8, 1962 in the port of Casilda the loading of exported Soviet ballistic missiles R-12 and its own shadow (photo by U.S. Air Force).
WITHOUT NUCLEAR SUBMARS
The composition of the group of Soviet troops in Cuba was determined by the end of June 1962. Its core was to be formed by the 51st Missile Division of the Strategic Missile Forces, formed from five missile regiments of three already existing missile divisions. In total, 36 R-12 medium-range ballistic missiles and 24 R-14 medium-range ballistic missiles with megaton-class thermonuclear warheads were supposed to be delivered to Cuba. This significantly increased the number of Soviet ground-based strategic missiles capable of bringing down nuclear charges directly on US territory. The range of the R-12, starting from Cuba, made it possible to "cover" a third of the territory of the States, including Washington, and the R-14 - almost all of their territory (with the exception of not particularly important Alaska), and even a solid part of Canada.
All other troops were supposed to cover the 51st Missile Division from possible attacks by the US armed forces and repel an American landing on Cuba. These were four reinforced motorized rifle regiments, two air defense divisions with S-75 anti-aircraft missile systems, an air defense fighter regiment with MiG-21 supersonic fighters, a separate bomber air squadron with Il-28A front-line bombers (carriers of nuclear bombs), a separate helicopter regiment, a separate transport - communication air squadron and two regiments of FKR-1 front-line cruise missiles in nuclear equipment. The commanders of three motorized rifle regiments were to receive unguided tactical missiles "Luna" - also with nuclear warheads.
Moreover, it was planned to deploy a new, 5th fleet of the USSR Navy based in Cuban ports in the Caribbean. Navy sailors were ready to allocate 2 light cruisers, 4 destroyers, 12 missile boats and 11 diesel submarines, including 7 project 629 missiles armed with R-13 ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. Despite the limited firing range (600 km) and the surface launch of missiles (3 each boat), being off the coast of the enemy, such submarines also posed a serious threat to the United States.
In addition to naval forces, the 5th Fleet was supposed to have a coastal missile regiment with cruise missiles of the Sopka complex (capable of carrying nuclear warheads) and a mine-torpedo regiment with Il-28T torpedo bombers.
But the command of the Navy did not dare to send nuclear submarines to Caribbean waters (by this time there were two dozen of them, including carriers of ballistic and cruise missiles), although such a possibility was considered. But the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, did not have complete confidence in their operational reliability - after all, experience in this area had just begun to develop. Too fresh in my memory was the heavy, with human casualties, accident of the nuclear power plant of the nuclear submarine missile carrier "K-19" of project 658, which happened a year earlier.
The grandiose operation to transfer troops and nuclear weapons to Cuba was given the code name "Anadyr". More than 50 thousand soldiers and officers were to be transported alone (in fact, 43 thousand were transported). The solution to this problem was entrusted to the merchant fleet. The Ministry of the Navy of the USSR involved 85 cargo and passenger ships in the operation. According to Anastas Mikoyan, First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, who was directly involved in those events, transportation costs alone amounted to $20 million.
Military transport and civil aviation were not involved in the operation (with the exception of the delivery to Havana of the first groups of rocket officers who arrived incognito on passenger Tu-114 and Il-18). Firstly, there were no heavy cargo aircraft of the An-22 Antey type at that time, and secondly, she would have to land for refueling at foreign airfields, in the devotion of the owners of which to the Soviet Union there was also no confidence. The latter was confirmed - already after the start of the crisis - by the refusal of the government of Guinea to allow the airfield in Conakry, built, by the way, under the guidance of Soviet engineers, for use in flights to Cuba.
On July 7, 1962, the General Staff reported to Khrushchev that the troops were ready for loading. The transportation was planned to be carried out in 4 months - from July to October.
The commander of a group of Soviet troops in Cuba, General Pliev, received a professional and personal pseudonym "specialist in agriculture Ivan Alexandrovich Pavlov." All other participants in the Anadyr operation also became "agronomists-livestock specialists", "geologists" and other "civilian specialists".
ALL ODESSA KNEW
In the ports of the Baltic, the Kola Peninsula and the Black Sea, under the cover of night and state secrets, work began to boil on loading troops and weapons onto transports.
Armored vehicles were placed in the holds, but cars, trailers and tractors were on deck: it was believed that the same ZIL-151 and ZIL-157 could easily pass for peaceful cargo. Designed for the future 5th Fleet, Project 183R small missile boats, nicknamed in the West in Russian “Komar”, were also mounted on the decks, thoroughly covered with wooden cases sheathed with metal sheets - so that the contents could not be “felt” with infrared devices. The personnel, dressed in civilian suits of Chinese tailoring, found themselves in ports, could no longer go beyond the loading areas. And no phone calls or emails! And along with the light uniforms for the southern regions that had just been adopted for the supply of the Soviet army (hitherto unprecedented cotton shirts with short sleeves, straight trousers and shorts), for the sake of conspiracy, they loaded sheepskin coats and felt boots.
The destination was not notified in the ports of departure, not only by the military personnel of the transferred units, up to senior officers, but even by the crews of the ships themselves, including the captains. Together with the heads of the transported military echelons, they had to find out the purpose of the campaign already at sea, opening secret packages by a special radio signal. No escort by warships was envisaged - in the most extreme case, light anti-aircraft systems were installed on dry cargo ships, disguised with plywood caps. The real effectiveness of such protection tended to zero. And boarding attempts by the enemy were ordered to repulse the personnel using personal small arms. The maximum that transports from the Soviet Navy could count on was single diesel submarines in the Atlantic.
Despite the measures to ensure the secrecy of the loading of troops, I had to once again be convinced of the enduring validity of the ironic saying that in Russia everything is traditionally a secret, but nothing is a secret. Nikita Sergeevich later noted in his memoirs: “All of Odessa knew that ships were being secretly equipped for Cuba. They talked about it on Privoz, portside traders gossiped.
The first cargo ship "Khabarovsk" with troops and military equipment left for Cuba on July 10 from Leningrad. On the same day, the passenger-and-freight ship "Maria Ulyanova" left Kaliningrad on the same route. And on July 13, the Admiral Nakhimov steamship rushed there from Sevastopol, on board of which were the headquarters of the 51st missile division, a communications regiment and a security platoon. It was a captured German ocean liner "Berlin" built in 1925, which regularly (until 1939) served as part of the German merchant fleet on the Bremerhaven-New York transatlantic line. Yes, yes, the one that sank on August 31, 1986 near Novorossiysk as a result of a collision with the Pyotr Vasyov grain carrier.
Interestingly, the vessels of the Ministry of the Navy involved in the Anadyr operation also included Liberty-type transports received at one time under Lend-Lease from the United States, which were built during the Second World War specifically for the transport of military cargo.
Of course, all this did not go unnoticed by foreign intelligence agencies. Vessels loaded and sailed in different basins at almost the same time. In the Danish and Black Sea straits, the caravans of Soviet transports caused almost pandemonium and, accordingly, among those very special services, vague suspicions about the true intentions of the USSR, which sent such massive technical assistance to the Cuban peasants. Well, an unprecedented battle for the harvest of sugar cane was not planned in Cuba! West German intelligence in their reports emphasized that Soviet ships did not call at foreign ports. These reports greatly contributed to the transformation of suspicion into a commotion format.
The reasons for it were the most compelling: in August 1962, the reconnaissance groups of Soviet missilemen in Cuba had already decided on the positional areas for launching missiles, the list and coordinates of targets in the United States and the power of nuclear explosions to destroy them.
On the approach to Cuba, Soviet ships became the objects of close attention of the ships and aircraft of the US Navy. On July 25, the first ship with troops, the Maria Ulyanova, arrived in Havana, then the rest began to arrive.
And on September 9, in the port of Kasilda, the dry-cargo ship "Omsk" with the first 6 R-12 ballistic missiles stood up for unloading. The USSR began to deploy strategic missile weapons on Liberty Island.
SHAKE AMERICA
Two days before the first Soviet strategic missiles were unloaded in Cuba, on September 7, the New York Times newspaper published an article claiming that not only military equipment and equipment had been transferred to the island, but also thousands of disguised Soviet military personnel. Similar statements were made by US officials, including President John F. Kennedy. Moreover, some American politicians began to accuse him of not taking retaliatory measures, bluntly speaking about the deployment of Soviet missile weapons in Cuba. Indeed, as early as August 29, a US Air Force U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft photographed the positions of C-75 anti-aircraft missile systems on the island (a missile of just such a complex shot down a U-2 near Sverdlovsk on May 1, 1960) and coastal anti-ship missiles of the Sopka complex.
The USSR, in response to this, as they say, began to "play Vanka" in the usual mode of "TASS is authorized to declare." On September 11, TASS issued a lengthy statement, which, in particular, said: “We do not hide from the world community that we really supply Cuba with industrial equipment and goods that help strengthen its economy and improve the well-being of the Cuban people. As is known, at the request of the Cuban government, in connection with the threats of aggressive imperialist circles, a certain amount of weapons is being supplied to Cuba from the Soviet Union. Cuban statesmen also turned to the Soviet government with a request to send Soviet military specialists to Cuba ... However, it must be said that the number of Soviet military specialists sent to Cuba cannot be compared with the number of agricultural and industrial workers sent there. The government of the Soviet Union also authorized TASS to declare that the Soviet Union does not need to transfer to some other country, for example, to Cuba, the means it has to repel aggression, to retaliate. Our nuclear weapons are so powerful in their explosive power, and the Soviet Union has such powerful nuclear launch vehicles that there is no need to look for a place to deploy them somewhere outside the Soviet Union.
The last thesis was a completely outright lie. It was he who gave the American "hawks" a rhetorical argument that put the two countries on the brink of unleashing a nuclear war: if the USSR imports missiles with nuclear warheads to Cuba and hides this, it means that the Soviets intend to inflict a surprise strike on the States, and from the shortest distance. After all, the Americans, for their part, did not hide which long-range ballistic missiles they deployed in NATO allied countries.
Well, then in that TASS statement there was a direct message to the Soviet people, from which many sank in the chest: “The government of the Soviet Union will do everything to ensure peace and peaceful coexistence with all countries. But it does not always depend only on us... If the aggressor unleashes a war, our armed forces must be ready to deal a crushing retaliatory strike against the aggressor. ... The Soviet government considers it its duty to show vigilance in the current situation and instruct the Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union, the command of the Soviet Army to take all measures to ensure that our Armed Forces are brought to the highest combat readiness.
Among the first, the consequences of this statement were felt by the Soviet soldiers and sailors finishing their military service, whose "demobilization" was postponed indefinitely.
On October 4, the diesel-electric ship Indigirka entered the port of Mariel, having made the transition from Severomorsk. In Moscow, which followed the transition of the Indigirka with special attention, they breathed a sigh of relief. Indeed, in its holds were hundreds (in TNT equivalent) of Hiroshima - nuclear warheads for R-12, Luna and FKR-1 missiles, nuclear bombs and nuclear sea mines.
Meanwhile, in the palm forests of Cuba, the placement of R-12 missiles at launch positions was in full swing.
Khrushchev in his memoirs commented on the situation with the slyness of TASS: “The Americans warned us informally through the channels that we then had with President Kennedy and his trusted people that they knew that we were installing missiles in Cuba. Naturally, we denied everything. It may be said that this is treachery. Unfortunately, in our time, this form of diplomacy is preserved, and we did not invent anything new here, but only used the same means that the enemy uses against us ... We, in fact, sought to shake America up and its leadership to feel what war, that it stands at their doorstep, that therefore it is not necessary to cross the line, a military clash should be avoided.
It was precisely this manner of behavior that the famous “Mr. No” who was in the USA, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Andrei Gromyko, who did not succumb to the reproaches of his American counterpart, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, adhered to this manner of behavior. On October 18, Gromyko was received at the White House by Kennedy, who already had U-2 photographs of the R-12 missile positions in Cuba. However, the US president said nothing about this to the Soviet minister, and even assured him that America was not going to attack Cuba. Well, Gromyko, who knew perfectly well about missiles, simply took Kennedy's statement into account.
NUCLEAR ISLAND
On October 22, Kennedy addressed the nation, announcing the imposition of a maritime quarantine on the island. From now on, every ship going to Cuba was subject to inspection by the Americans. If the crew refused to search, the ship was to be detained and escorted to the nearest US port.
In the meantime, the United States began preparing a strike against Cuba, and not only against it. Up to 180 ships of the American fleet were sent directly against Cuba, including aircraft carrier forces and large forces of marines on landing ships. The armored units of the ground forces were also preparing for landing on the island. In total, up to 3 thousand aircraft and helicopters and up to 250 thousand soldiers, sailors and officers of the US armed forces were to take part in possible hostilities. At the same time, the deployment of the US Navy in the Atlantic and Pacific began against the Soviet Navy. Positional areas were occupied by American nuclear missile submarines, ready to strike at Soviet cities with Polaris ballistic missiles. Aircraft carriers advanced to the shores of our country on the lines of lifting attack aircraft with nuclear bombs. Refueling of Atlas and Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles with fuel components has begun. The bases of the medium-range missiles "Thor" and "Jupiter" in Great Britain, Italy and Turkey were in full readiness for a nuclear attack. The number of B-52 Stratofortress heavy strategic bombers on duty in the air increased sixfold, two hundred B-47 Stratojet medium bombers at European and Far Eastern US air bases were put on alert at airfields.
Great Britain also joined the process of fear-mongering, which brought half of its strategic bombers of the “V” family to combat readiness. All of them also had targets on the territory of the USSR.
The naval quarantine declared by the United States (more precisely, a military blockade) prevented the further delivery of Soviet weapons to Cuba. True, the Aleksandrovsk transport was able to break through to the island, which brought nuclear warheads for R-14 ballistic missiles and FKR-1 cruise missiles to the port of La Isabela. However, the R-14 missiles themselves, which were on board other transports, could not be delivered to Cuba - those ships had to return back to Soviet ports. On the other hand, ships with civilian cargo (including ships chartered by the USSR under the flags of other countries) were allowed to pass through American cruisers and destroyers after inspection by boarding teams or visual and photographic control. They also missed the cruise liner from the GDR "Volkerfreundschaft" ("Friendship of Peoples"), which was carrying students to the Island of Freedom, in the most potential inferno. Unsuspecting young people were very surprised when an American destroyer began to escort them.
Despite the blockade, by the time the Caribbean crisis culminated, the group of Soviet troops in Cuba was a formidable force. The 51st Rocket Division had 36 R-12 ballistic missiles with 24 launch pads and 36 thermonuclear warheads. By the 20th of October, she could already strike at the United States from all 24 starting positions. The division took aim at Washington, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Norfolk, Houston, Charleston, many US Air Force bases, including, for example, at Cape Canaveral.
To drop nuclear bombs on Florida or Guantanamo - the American base in Cuba could be 6 Il-28A front-line bombers with 6 407N tactical nuclear bombs. It is curious that the "products" 407H were equipped in the Crimean nuclear arsenal, which was located in Kiziltash (Krasnokamenka). But they were delivered to Cuba not through the nearby Feodosia, where the air defense units sent there were loaded, but through Severomorsk - on board the Indigirka.
Another 36 Il-28T naval torpedo-bombers as part of the mine-torpedo air regiment of the Navy were disassembled in containers.
A murderous thrashing to the American landing force could have been arranged by two regiments of front-line cruise missiles with 34 FKR-1 missiles, to which 80 nuclear charges were delivered (however, another 46 missiles could not be delivered) and three divisions of Luna tactical missiles (36 missiles, 12 of them with nuclear warheads). In the coastal missile regiment with 8 launchers of anti-ship missiles of the Sopka complex, nuclear charges were also provided for 6 missiles.
In total, more than 160 nuclear weapons were brought to Cuba.
But the creation of the Soviet 5th Fleet in the Caribbean Sea did not work out. Only 12 missile boats were deployed on transports, then transferred to the Cubans. Of the four large diesel submarines of project 641 (“Foxtrot” according to NATO classification) sent to Cuba, each of which had one 533-mm torpedo with a nuclear charge, three submarines, pursued by American ships, were forced to surface for charging batteries right in front of them. Only one boat broke away from the enemy in a submerged position. All of them returned to the Kola Peninsula, from where they left.
Then the First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, Marshal Andrey Grechko, severely reproached the commanders of three boats - “losers” - they say, they had to die, and not emerge. The well-known thesis from the discourse “mothers give birth to new ones” was aggravated by the fact that the marshal, as it turned out, did not know that the boats were diesel, not nuclear. 
Deployment of the nuclear-capable Sopka anti-ship missile in the Cuban coastal jungle (Internet).
To be continued...
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