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Health & Fitness

Soviet "Noises" Mislead the Kennedy Administration: July 23, 1962

The Kennedy Administration in late July, 1962: still blind to the Soviets' plan to establish strategic missile bases in Cuba.

Thirty-seventh Chapter in a Series Chronicling the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

In the preceding chapter of this series (), we looked at the blizzard of “noise” the Kremlin threw out to mask the Soviet deployment of strategic missiles to Cuba (Operation ANADYR).

Fifty years ago today, that Soviet campaign of maskirovka, or deception, particularly its strident agitation over Berlin and nuclear testing, appeared to be working.

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President Kennedy’s News Conference

On July 23, 1962, President Kennedy held a news conference. The Times report was headlined, “Kennedy Gloomy over Prospects for Berlin Talks. Says Rusk-Gromyko Parleys in Geneva Make No Gains—U.S. Planes Harassed.”

Reporters asked Kennedy 23 questions. The first concerned Berlin. So did the twelfth.

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The second and seventh questions concerned nuclear testing.

The 13th question concerned a possible direct phone link between Kennedy and Khrushchev “in case of emergency.” Kennedy said none was needed.

Answering the 14th question, Kennedy said he expected to have frequent contacts with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.

Reporters asked Kennedy eleven questions about the U.S. economy and other domestic issues. One question concerned the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the growing civil rights movement.

But at no point during this conference did Kennedy say one word, nor did reporters ask a single question, about Cuba.

The first ANADYR ship had sailed eight days before.

More Noises from Berlin

On July 19, 1962, the Times announced that during the first six months of the year Communist East German authorities had “disappeared” 139 persons traveling “on the land routes through East Germany between Berlin and the West.” Official East German statements suggested that these disappearances would continue until the USSR and East Germany signed a separate peace treaty ending World War II, after which the Allied military occupation of Berlin would be in limbo.

The Soviets also continued sporadic harassment of allied aircraft flying in the three corridors linking Berlin to West Germany.

Finally, on July 18, policeman on both sides of the Berlin Wall had exchanged gunfire during a foiled escape attempt by East Germans.

The noise from Berlin remained deafening.

Castro’s Hint

In 1965, Roberta Wohlstetter wrote that Fidel Castro “sometimes cannot resist hints that may reveal a trap before his victim falls into it.”

On July 26th, 1962, Castro may have hinted at exactly such a trap being prepared for the United States.

Speaking at a rally celebrating the ninth anniversary of his abortive 26th of July attack on the Cuban Army barracks at Mercado, Castro told his Santiago audience that Cuba must “work harder” to strengthen its defenses. Pointing at Cuban jet fighters flying overhead, Castro told the crowd that the planes were “nothing but the preamble.”

If those fighters were merely the “preamble,” to what were they preamble? What did Castro have up his fatigue-jacket sleeve? No one in government or the press seems to have asked that question.

In fact, very few in 1962 Washington took anything Cuba’s bearded, erratic leader said seriously. Castro’s “preamble” statement vanished, unremarked, among the many confusing noises bombarding Washington fifty years ago this month.

The day Castro referred to his fighters as the “preamble,” however, the Maria Ulyanova docked at Cabañas, the first Soviet freighter to land ANADYR cargo in Cuba.

As dock cranes swung over Maria Ulyanova’s opened hatches, Khrushchev’s risky gamble moved another step toward fulfillment.

Email your questions to phufstader@sbcglobal.net or post a comment.

Sources and Notes

Kennedy’s July 23 press conference was covered by E. W. Kenworthy’s “Kennedy Gloomy over Prospects for Berlin Talks.” New York Times, July 24, 1962, p. 1. The transcript of Kennedy’s news conference appeared on p. 12 of that issue.

The Times article reporting on the abducted travelers was an unsigned special headlined “Travelers Held In East Germany.” New York Times, July 19, 1962, p. 7.

Roberta Wohlstetter’s comment appears in her “Cuba and Pearl Harbor: Hindsight and Foresight.” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Jul., 1965), 691-707, at 693.

Castro’s 26 July speech was reported in an unsigned AP article published by the Times on July 27, 1962: “Castro Charges U.S. is preparing Attack,” 4. The Chicago Tribune ran a slightly longer version of the AP article, also on July 27.

The Marya Ulyanova’s arrival in Cuba on 26 July is described by General Anatoli I. Gribkov in his and William Y. Smith’s Operation ANADYR: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chicago: edition q, inc., 1994, 29. Gribkov does not describe the ship’s cargo. She was not carrying nuclear missiles, however—those did not leave the Soviet Union until middle to late August. The first medium-range nuclear missiles arrived in Cuba on or about September 8th.

July 26, 1953, has become a holy day in Cuba’s annual calendar, on a par with our July 4th. Both are celebrated as a subject people’s first step toward independence.

Re Castro’s “preamble” comment: in 1962 America beards were the hallmark of communists, beatniks, and social outcasts in general. Button-down, pin-stripe establishment America thus viewed the bearded Castro and his equally bearded aides with loathing and contempt. Castro’s interminable, emotional speeches, his outrageous expropriation of American property in Cuba, his suspension of voting, and his known use of the secret police and “political murder” to suppress his opponents made him the perfect Satanic figure for America’s establishment. He was the Other. Many thought him mad.

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