Lesson 1: No one can “win” a nuclear war.

The first lesson is the most important one. Prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the politicomilitary leadership of the Soviet Union and the United States had believed it would be possible to use nuclear weapons to win in a war against each other. Indeed, that belief was even articulated in their respective military doctrines. Having found themselves on the edge of nuclear abyss during the CMC, Soviet and American leaders realized that there could be no winners in a nuclear war. They realized that after the opponent is defeated, a war cannot be considered victorious if it involves the death of an estimated total of 80–100 million people of your own people. Moreover, no one could guarantee against the deaths of millions more as a result of the subsequent environmental catastrophe caused by nuclear war.

This realization led to the creation in 1963 of a direct communications link between the Kremlin and the White House so that the leaders of the U.S.S.R. and the United States could quickly resolve any crisis before it could escalate to a military confrontation. Further on, the countries signed the Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Outbreak of Nuclear War between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics in 1971 and the Agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics on Prevention of Nuclear War in 1973. These agreements are open-ended and they continue to contribute to maintenance of strategic stability and international security to date.

Lesson 2: In a nuclear confrontation, both sides must compromise in order to find a mutually acceptable solution. There is no other rational way out of the crisis.

The U.S. and U.S.S.R. only found a way out of the CMC when both sides expressed a willingness to compromise and make mutual concessions. This created a window of opportunity to find mutually acceptable solutions rather than corner the opposing party with ultimatums.

There is simply no other rational way out of situations like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Nuclear missile confrontations and ultimatums are not compatible.

Both countries benefited from learning this lesson. The two countries have not encountered such crisis situations in the course of the 50 years since the CMC. The bilateral relationship has had its ups and downs: one need only look at the tense situation around Able Archer in Fall 1983. Yet the superpowers never again came so perilously close to the danger of fullscale nuclear war as they did during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both sides gradually formed views on how to ensure strategic stability and that was reflected in a number of official Soviet-U.S. and then Russian-U.S. documents.

Lesson 3: Prepare to make decisions thoroughly. Make sure there is clear and timely communication between you and your adversary during a crisis.

The Cuban Missile Crisis illustrated the need to prepare thoroughly and professionally to make any and all decisions in a crisis. It also illustrated the need for timely communication of those decisions to an opposing side. A number of setbacks occurred in decision making process of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. that made resolution of the CMC far much more difficult. Those failures brought both sides to the edge of a nuclear abyss. For example, Kennedy received through the U.S. embassy in Moscow a private letter from Khrushchev on the evening of October 26, 1962, in which the Soviet leader stated that the U.S.S.R agreed to withdraw nuclear missiles from Cuba if the United States would guarantee that it would not invade Cuba. The American president and his entourage began to draft a reply to Khrushchev, in which they agreed to offer a guarantee of non-aggression to Cuba in exchange for withdrawal of Soviet nuclear missiles. However, Kennedy then received another letter from Khrushchev on the morning of October 27. In that letter the Soviet leader put forward another condition for resolution of the crisis: withdrawal of America’s Jupiter nuclear missiles from Turkey. This message, which Americans believed to be a follow-on to the letter he received on October 26, changed the whole atmosphere of the negotiations. The Americans began to think that either there had been a coup in the Kremlin or that Khrushchev had come under such strong pressure from Kremlin hawks that he had to abandon his conciliatory position.

In reality, the ‘second’ message that Kennedy received on October 27 was supposed to have been first. It was only due to the sluggishness of employees of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs—who delayed sending Khrushchev’s original letter—that Kennedy read the conciliatory follow-on letter first and heard the aggressive, original message second.

The confusion over the sequence of Khrushchev’s messages could have led to disastrous consequences if were not for Robert Kennedy, brother of the American president and U.S. Attorney General. On the evening of October 27, Robert Kennedy met with Anatoly Dobrynin, Soviet ambassador to the United States. That meeting cleared up the misunderstandings and soon thereafter President Kennedy sent to Chairman Khrushchev a message that enabled the Soviet leader to accept the conditions for resolution of the crisis proposed by the American side: guarantee of non-aggression against Cuba in return for withdrawal of the Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba.

Lesson 4: Do not rely purely on intelligence agencies for information.

The actions undertaken by the militaries of the nations involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated that decisions should not be based solely on information collected through intelligence. Both the U.S. and Soviet intelligence agencies made mistakes when drawing conclusions from their analysis of the situation during the crisis.

Erroneous intelligence analysis led to erroneous decisions that increased the chances for the outbreak of hostilities. For example, General Thomas Power, head of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, issued an order on October 24, 1962 to put subordinate units on full alert, even though the situation did not require this. On October 27, 1962, General Stepan Grechko, who at that time served as deputy commander of the Soviet forces in Cuba with responsibility for air defense, gave the order to open fire at an American U-2 spy plane. Two missiles launched from the Dvina air defense system (NATO reporting name: SA-2 Guideline) hit the reconnaissance plane, killing the pilot. This incident almost pushed the crisis to the breaking point.

This study is intended neither to be exhaustively comprehensive nor to represent the ultimate truth. It is the result of the author’s purely personal reflections, inspired not only by his memories as a direct participant in the menacing events of 1962, but also by the information on these events that has become available to him in recent years.