I've just watched a program about this, and it inferred, but didn't confirm, that part of the agreement for the Soviets to dismantle the missiles and remove them included the removal of US nuclear missiles from Turkey. This latter part was kept secret at the time, and I've never heard of it. Does anyone know if that is what actually happened?

It did, and it wasn't considered much of a concession because the Jupiter missiles stationed there were obsolete anyway.

Oh, the program didn't mention that. It made a big deal of the threat the Soviets perceived from those missiles, as a reason for them to ship the stuff to Cuba. Would the Soviets have known they were obsolete?

An obsolete nuclear weapon can still do a lot of damage.

So what was the truth here? On the one hand the Soviets climbed down and Kennedy claimed a victory, which is the way the West saw it. On the other hand the Russians got rid of a perceived threat, if not an actual one. I wonder if it was actually a fair deal in the end. Maybe the Soviets came out on top because of the removal of the threat from Turkey. They also found out about how good US surveillance was from the presentation they made in public.

The truth is that you have to give the other guy something to save face.

I've always been interested in negotiation. You have a list of what you must have, and what you would like, and what you won't accept, and so does the other guy. Sometimes it comes down to who wants it the most, or who needs it the most, and you have to guess that. If you can walk away from the deal you can usually get a good deal.

What was the real case here? Before the crisis the US had missiles in Turkey and afterwards they didn't. The Soviets gained an advantage, at least as they saw it, while the US gained a PR advantage.

The missiles in Turkey had to be fueled prior to launch. It took time, like 15-20 minutes as I recall. That is why they were obsolete, the Soviets could zorch them on the ground in a sneak attack.

Yeah, but the question is, did the Soviets know that? If they did then they knew they weren't a threat, so why bother with the whole Cuba thing.

Even if they had to be fuelled, there would be time to do that in the event of the kind of stand-off that took place, no? They could stay fuelled for how long though?

(August 14, 2014 at 4:57 pm)Diablo Wrote: So what was the truth here? On the one hand the Soviets climbed down and Kennedy claimed a victory, which is the way the West saw it. On the other hand the Russians got rid of a perceived threat, if not an actual one. I wonder if it was actually a fair deal in the end. Maybe the Soviets came out on top because of the removal of the threat from Turkey. They also found out about how good US surveillance was from the presentation they made in public.

As I understand it, Kruschev believed that JFK was soft and would back down in the event of a confrontation. When Kennedy made it clear that he wasn't going to back off, and a nuclear exchange appeared to be possible, he decided that it wasn't worth the risk. It's possible that the removal of missiles in Turkey was a way of avoiding a complete loss of face, but the fact that he backed down from sending missiles to Cuba was a pretty big victory for JFK. I think that if Kruschev really did see JFK as a lightweight, being forced to back down would have been pretty humiliating.