- HAVANA (Reuters) - The world
was much closer to a nuclear holocaust during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis
than governments knew, former U.S. and Russian officials and military officers
said on Friday.
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- A conference marking the 40th anniversary of the most
dangerous moment of the Cold War heard the account of a U.S. naval officer
whose destroyer dropped depth charges on a Soviet submarine carrying a
nuclear weapon on Oct. 27, 1962.
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- That day the crisis appeared to be spinning out of control,
according to declassified documents discussed by protagonists, including
Cuban leader Fidel Castro and former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
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- The next day, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered
the withdrawal of missiles secretly deployed in Cuba, pressed by U.S. photographic
evidence and a naval blockade imposed on the island by President John F.
Kennedy.
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- "This was not only the most dangerous moment of
the Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in human history,"
said Kennedy aide and historian Arthur Schlesinger.
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- "Never before had two contending powers possessed
between them the technical capacity to blow up the world," he told
Reuters.
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- "Fortunately, Kennedy and Khrushchev were leaders
of restraint and sobriety, otherwise we probably wouldn't be here today,"
he said.
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- According to documents released at the conference by
the National Security Archive of Washington, U.S. intelligence only photographed
33 of the 42 SS-4 medium-range ballistic missiles placed in Cuba, and never
located the nuclear warheads.
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- STRIKE AGAINST CUBA
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- On Oct 27, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over
Cuba and the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended to Kennedy
that the United States proceed with an air strike and invasion plan.
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- Later that day, when low-level reconnaissance pilots
reported anti-aircraft fire from the ground in Cuba and photography showed
that some missiles had been placed on launchers, Kennedy told his advisers
"time is running out."
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- His brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, later met
with the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, and offered
a deal that included a pledge not to invade Cuba and the withdrawal of
U.S missiles from Turkey.
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- In the middle of the escalating tensions, the destroyer
USS Beale, whose Second Captain John Peterson spoke at Friday's sessions,
was dropping depth charges on Soviet submarine B-59, one of four at the
quarantine line, each carrying nuclear-tipped torpedoes.
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- The U.S. Navy "did not have a clue that the submarine
had a nuclear weapon on board," National Security Archives director
Thomas Blanton said at a news conference.
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- "They exploded right next to the hull. It felt like
you were sitting in a metal barrel, which somebody is constantly blasting
with a sledgehammer," the sub's signals intelligence officer Vadim
Orlov said in an account issued by Blanton.
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- The Soviet submarine's crew thought the war may have
started and considered using their nuclear weapon, but decide instead to
surface, Orlov said.
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- Further declassified documents issued at the conference
showed that by Oct. 27 Castro had ordered Cuban anti-aircraft gunners to
fire on U.S reconnaissance planes and expected an all-out U.S. air strike
and invasion of Cuba within 24 to 72 hours.
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- "We were shot at," said U.S. Navy F-8 fighter
pilot William Ecker, who flew dangerous low-level missions over the missile
bases to take photographs that were presented by the United States at the
United Nations as evidence that the Soviets were lying to the world.
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- "Out of 82 missions, me and my 15 pilots never took
one hole," Ecker, 78, told reporters at the conference, speaking of
hits from anti-aircraft guns. "It was different to what you saw in
the movie (Thirteen Days)."
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- "I got the evidence. I had a mission to perform
and did. I have no political feelings. I'm a fighter pilot and a goddamn
good one."
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- Ecker will join other participants on Sunday on a visit
to the only remaining missile silo in Cuba and the shell of a Soviet SS-4
rocket kept in a museum to remember the crisis.
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