I bet that this sounds rather "off the rocker" for most, but I had a thought pop in the other night while I was thinking about something else entirely. I know, who thinks about Cold War Cuba at night while watching Deadliest Catch? Anyhow I digress...
The Soviet Union was the pinnacle of Communistic progress in the 20th century. It was a cold, brutal regime that treated its people with calculated indifference; a resource to managed like any other. Those that rose to the top of that political structure got there through a combination of intelligence, political skill, ruthlessness, and just plain luck. Khrushchev was born into a peasant family in a peasant village. He had, if I remember correctly, only about four years of formal education. The rest of what he knew he learned Al Capone style, climbing the political ladder and seeing his opposition crushed. The man is personally responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent individuals throughout the great purges of Stalin. He only survived the purges himself through sheer luck; Stalin was in a good mood each time Khrushchev was denounced.
The picture I'm painting is that of a poor peasant with hardly any formal education that rises to the fist seat of the Politburo. The man survived numerous purges, service in Stalingrad during WWII, the post war purges of the Red Army and the Commissariat, to continue his rise within the party. He was a man who lived one of Rush Limbaugh's most appropriate "Undeniable Truths of Life", "The world is governed by the aggressive use of force". It was not a philosophical statement that he posted on his office wall; he lived it every moment of his life. He was a Soviet of the highest caliber and a perfect example of the pragmatic Russian/Slav.
His opposite during the Cuban Missile Crisis was John F. Kennedy. A man of Irish Catholic decent, the scion and flag bearer of the great Kennedy dynasty; royalty in almost every sense of the word. During his day, no one really knew much about the real JFK. The press covered for him, much like the press covers for Obama today. The media in general did not want to embarrass a sitting President (well, until Nixon that is) with airing dirty personal laundry in public.
Khrushchev was quite happy that JFK won the election in 1960, just as all dictators LOVE IT when a Democrat is ushered in for a shot at the big-boy's chair. He though Nixon was dangerous, i.e. he would know just where and how to hurt the Soviet Union and would not hesitate to exploit those weak areas (he was proven right). Khrushchev was shocked when the information that the KGB had collected on JFK was partially false. Even the KGB could not get reliable information on this man, his personal life was so "off limits". JFK was vocal, loud, defiant, and righteous in his denunciations of the Soviet Union, its way of life, its human rights record, and godless oppression of the satellite nations taken after WWII. This rocked Khrushchev on his heels.
Then came Berlin, disarmament talks, and the U2 flights over Soviet soil. The Missile Crisis was the defining moment that, I think, was one of those historical pivot points where we could either have gone the route of Mad Max, or gone on the path we are on today. Without boring you with all the details, what it all came down to was this: the US placed a naval blockade around Cuba to keep nuclear missiles from being installed. It was legal under international law and the US was determined to enforce it. Khrushchev was attempting to balance what he saw as a the US advantage of missiles based in Turkey. I don't think he was expecting the push back that he received from JFK.
According to Khrushchev's world view, his move was perfectly acceptable. There were US missiles in West Germany and Turkey, and placing missiles of his own in Cuba would help to restore the nuclear deterrent balance. In JFK's world view, he saw missiles positioned just 90 miles off the sandy, tourist-filled beaches of Florida. The public was not going to stand for it, and, being a politician, was always worried about the next election, both for himself and his party. This could not stand. He erected a blockade, had an oval office speech with the American public (when that still meant something), and ramped up military preparedness for possible war over Cuba.
Khrushchev understood power; the accumulation and the exercise thereof. He knew when to push his luck and when to back off and fight another day. He evaluated JFK's position and he evaluated his own. When he looked at JFK, he saw a self-righteous, drug using, womanizing politician. JFK could be excused, in his viewpoint, of everything except the politician part. JFK was not going to back down after the embarrassment of the Bay of Pigs. Khrushchev did the pragmatic thing and backed down. Western historical texts love to say that JFK had history on his side and adults like to say that JFK made Khrushchev "blink". What men those are...
I believe that it is much simpler than that. Khrushchev simply did not think that Cuba was worth fighting a war over. To him, war was an application of political policy. If he could not put missiles in Cuba he would get the US to take their missiles out of Turkey. A secret clause in the negotiations ending the Cuban Missile Crisis did just that.
JFK was willing to go all the way up to and including pressing the button to keep the Soviet missiles out of Cuba. That determination was driven more by pride than pragmatism, and I think that Khrushchev understood this. He also knew that you should only use your ultimate weapons to secure an ultimate goal; point was that Cuba and the stationing of missiles there was simply was not worth the trouble.
Thank you again, Mr. Khrushchev for being the better man when history needed you. Your actions cost you your position within the Soviet Union as the ambitious leaders-to-be used it for their own play at power. I'm able to live in this world today because you understood the raw application of power. The Soviet Union was brutal and repressive, however, it understood what was worth destroying the world over and Cuba certainly was not worth it.
-Zavost
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