General Pliyev was commander of the Soviet troops in Cuba. He received instructions not to use nuclear weapons without authorization from Moscow, but in the absence of technical safeguards to physically prevent their use, Moscow relied on Pliyev’s obedience. Pliyev suspected that the Soviet missiles in Cuba had been discovered by the U.S. after the U-2 overflights on October 14, and shared his concern with General Gribkov on October 18, but without proof, they chose not to risk their careers by reporting the suspicion to Moscow. Therefore, the Kremlin did not suspect the discovery until Kennedy’s announcement on October 22.
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center has created this site as a resource for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Designed to help policymakers, students, and interested citizens draw lessons from these critical events half a century ago, this site not only provides background on the crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster in October 1962 but also offers tools to understand how it can inform contemporary policy.