If not for courageous actions of Vasily Arkipov, the Cuban Missile Crisis would have become known as the Cuban Missile War
History is normally portrayed from the viewpoint of the person in charge: the King, the President or the Commander-in-Chief. Their memoirs – and more importantly history – are recorded from their point of view – the strategic level. I can well imagine a Montgomery or an Eisenhower gently sipping their 20 year old red wine in a plush air-conditioned mobile home 150 miles from the front while the ordinary soldier was enduring temperatures of minus ten degrees somewhere in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium during December 1944 at the height of the Battle of the Bulge.
Often in the Ardennes Campaign, like in many other battles, it was the heroic efforts of a solitary soldier armed with a bazooka who held up an entire armoured panzer column in the winding forest tracks euphemistically classified as roads.
The life and death decisions of that soldier, scared out of his mind and facing death or worse, often decide the fate of battles and nations.
In the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was no different but that man did not receive a medal or even recognition for his role but rather the suspicion and aspersions of a paranoid regime. His future was comparable to that of a whistle-blower as no recognition is ever bestowed upon them for their selfless act.
In this Opinion Piece let us celebrate that little-known person for five minutes.
The origin of the Cuban Missile Crisis arose at the conclusion of WW2 when the Russians, whilst liberating the Eastern European Countries, immediately installed Communist Parties in power and thwarted any attempts at democratic processes. These actions ultimately culminated in the creation of the so-called Iron Curtain which devilled relations between Russia and the West.
Due to escalating tensions, the Cold War was unofficially declared. Unlike other wars, this one potentially had more serious ramifications: the ability to destroy the world. The progenitor of this ability was the newly-developed nuclear weapons.
By the 1950s, Russia possessed 100 ICMBs and 300 nuclear bombs whereas the USA had 5000 in total.
On the 14th October 1962 as tensions heightened in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion, a U2 spy plane flying on a routine reconnaissance mission over Cuba photographed a missile launching base.
Khrushchev was playing a dangerous game as Kennedy viewed this act as destabilisation and a provocation. The USA was unable to accept nuclear missiles barely 90 kms from their homeland.
Kennedy’s back was against the wall as the military chiefs bayed for Russian blood. WW2 veteran, Air Force General, Curtis Lemay, led the pack. He claimed in a blood thirsty mood “We can rip off the bear’s leg up to its testicles. But maybe we should take his testicles too!!” He espoused a surgical airstrike using nuclear weapons which would effectively eliminate the danger but what he forgot to factor in was the unintended consequence: retaliation by Russia.
The readiness status of the nuclear forces in the USA were shifted from DEFCOM3 to DEFCOM2 the highest status that it has ever been attained. At this level, the ultimate decision regarding the use of these weapons was delegated to a General. At his sole discretion the lives of 500 million people were precariously balanced.
As the world watched transfixed, the rhetoric escalated. Khrushchev and Kennedy were losing control of the situation as the military and the citizens demanded action and neither party could or would concede.
After 5 days Kennedy responded. He opted for a blockade of Cuba. To disguise its true military intent it was designated the benign sobriquet of a Quarantine Zone. No vessels from any nations were permitted to enter this exclusion area under pain of destruction by the US navy.
With the Russian’s national honour at stake, a squadron of four submarines were sent to break the blockade. The US Carrier, the USS Randolph, and its accompanying destroyers detected them. They promptly gave pursuit dropping depth charges as they did so. The submarines were forced ever deeper underwater; the air becoming fetid with fumes and carbon monoxide. The men were slowly suffocating. For four hours the confrontation continued. The Soviet captain was fully aware of his precarious predicament; within a short while, the first of my asphyxiating crew would pass out.
Believing that the war with the USA had already commenced and with instructions that if he was unable to contact base, he could – without authorisation – launch missiles against the USA, he weighed his options. With the radio inoperable, Captain Vitali Grigorievitch Savitsky prepared himself for the inevitable; a nuclear war.
Finally when he deemed the situation to be critical, he ordered that nuclear torpedoes be readied for launch. In their stupor, the Russian submariners prepared their charges. Every breath was a battle, every step like trudging at 29,000 feet up Mount Everest. They were literally at death’s door as they obeyed orders and prepared to kill 100 million Americans.
At this juncture, a junior Political Officer, Vasily Arkipov stepped forward. In the surreal structure that was Russia, a junior political officer or Commissar had the final word on all decisions. He elected to override the commands of a 20 year naval veteran for political reasons.
The torpedoes were deactivated and the submarine exited the exclusion zone.
For his brave decision for preventing nuclear Armageddon, Vasily Arkipov was not recognised nor decorated. In fact this deed went unknown for decades until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Four decades passed before the story of what really happened on the B59 sub was discovered. That was only after Arkipov had died in 1998 from radiation poisoning. Yet despite saving the world, he died humiliated, outcast and an unknown.
It is only in the West that his action has been lauded, not by some grateful governments, but rather by a number of documentaries chronicling his story.
The whole world owes a debt of gratitude to the selfless actions of this young man. A memorial to his deeds needs to be erected in order to commemorate it otherwise it will become yet another footnote to history – uncelebrated and unknown.
Perhaps another person should also be accorded the honour of preventing Nuclear War but so far this avowed event remains unproven.
Barely a week after the incident with the Russian submarine, President Kennedy ordered his brother Robert to enter negotiations with the Russians about the removal of the nuclear weapons from Cuba. For this purpose Robert Kennedy elected to meet with the Russian Ambassador in the USA – Anatoly Dobrinyin. National honour and pride was at stake. Neither man could compromise. America could not tolerate nuclear missiles remaining in Cuba while Russia demanded the removal of the USA’s Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
As the Russians were clearly guilty by originating this crisis, this proposal – in the form of a quid pro quo – was one that the US was unwilling to entertain. At the point when Dobrinyin got up to leave, Robert Kennedy offered a “confidential agreement”: America would remove the missiles from Turkey after six months with the strict proviso that Russia never acknowledged the fact that it was a term of the agreement.
But what Dobrinyin recorded in his memoirs 40 years later was a different story. He claimed that Robert Kennedy had informed him that if a deal was not struck, his brother would be removed from power by a military coup to be replaced with military hardliners.
Apparently it was this fact that finally convinced Khrushchev to order the removal of the nuclear missiles. As no such information has ever surfaced in the USA, it can only be concluded that the report by Dobrinyin was purely a work of fiction in order to convince Khrushchev to remove the missiles from Cuba.
Dobrinyin’s report is also unsubstantiated in Russia despite the archival records now being available. Whether Dobrinyin played a pivotal role in the missile’s removal will never be known for sure. Little credence is accorded to his story by both parties.
Nevertheless, Dobrinyin’s role will forever remain subject to conjecture but young Vasily Arkipov certainly deserves fulsome praise for this action.
Perhaps even Khrushchev himself, who blinked first, should be accorded some recognition for his role in removing these missiles. For Nikita Khrushchev’s efforts to avert war, he was unceremoniously deposed as First Secretary of the Communist Party barely a year later in October 1964 and replaced by the more hard-line and dour Leonid Brezhnev.
The avoidance of nuclear war was a near-run thing but it took the selfless deeds of some good men and especially that of Vasily Arkipov.
For that act, I salute you Vasily