FLASH POINTS
Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
By Serhii Plokhy
464 pages.
W. W. Norton & Company. $35.
Reviewed by Paul Starobin
On May 21, 1962, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev called a meeting of the Defense Council of the USSR to present an idea that had attached to his restless imagination on a recent seaside stroll in Bulgaria: installing missiles with nuclear warheads in Fidel Castro’s Cuba to protect the Soviet satellite against a U.S. military invasion. Khrushchev’s first deputy, Anastas Mikoyan, immediately raised a practical objection to the proposal. The United States would easily detect the missile launchers, he pointed out, because there was no good place to hide them on a subtropical island notable for its thin canopy of palm trees. And once the launchers were discovered, Mikoyan added, the U.S. military would take them out by air and likely kill Soviet soldiers in the strike. And then what would Moscow do?
As internal discussions proceeded over the next few days, Mikoyan repeated his warnings of “dangerous or even catastrophic consequences” to Khrushchev’s contemplated move, but the premier stuck to his plan: “Let’s not talk about it anymore,” Khrushchev finally told Mikoyan. “We will ask Fidel Castro and then we will decide.”
The missiles were installed , demonstrates otherwise.
