Who Can Launch Soviet Missiles in Cuba?

Fifty-sixth Chapter in a Series Chronicling the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

The Soviet Missiles in Cuba

Once the ANADYR deployment was completed, the USSR would have in place

• A strategic nuclear strike force capable of firing 60 one-kiloton warheads at targets in all of the United States but the extreme northwest corner, all of the Caribbean and Central America, and the northern third of South America. (In early September Khrushchev had, for some reason, added six Il-28 twin-jet bombers and 6 atomic bombs to this strike force.)
• Over 90 tactical nuclear warheads, an unknown number of them rated at 12 kilotons, to repel an air-sea invasion of Cuba.
• Twenty-four overlapping, interconnected surface-to-air missile sites ringing Cuba’s coast. Their SA-2 missiles could bring down the high-flying U-2; and
• Four motorized rifle regiments with tanks and field guns. Three of the regiments would also be equipped with nuclear-tipped Luna missiles ordered to Cuba on September 8th.

Three battalions of conventional Sopka coastal defense cruise missiles were also deployed near landing beaches in Cuba. See the 55th chapter in this series for more on the Sopka ().

Moscow Sends Orders to Cuba

On September 8, 1962, the Soviet General Staff sent General Pliyev, commanding the Soviet Group of Forces in Cuba, a cable containing the rules governing the use of the missiles under his command.

Strategic Missiles: Strike the United States

“The missile forces, constituting the backbone for the defense of the Soviet Union and Cuba, must be prepared, upon signal from Moscow, to deal a nuclear missile strike on the most important targets in the United States of America (list of targets included in Attachment #1).” The translator notes that the attachment was not included in the Volkogonov Papers given to the Library of Congress. We thus do not know the American targets the Soviet General Staff had decided to strike.

Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)

The SAM sites “will not permit incursion of foreign aircraft into the air space of the Republic of Cuba…Combat use of [air defense] forces will be activated by the Commander of the Group of Forces.” That bolded phrase gave General Pliyev sole authority to launch his SAMs at any “foreign aircraft” entering Cuban air space—like an American U-2.

Army

Two of the motorized rifle regiments, equipped with nuclear Lunas, tanks and field guns, would protect the missile bases in western and central Cuba. A third Luna-equipped regiment would protect Pliyev’s Command headquarters. The fourth regiment, without Lunas, would operate in the area of Banes in eastern Cuba. Pliyev’s orders did not specify who had authority to fire the Lunas, leaving the impression that the Soviet General Staff was leaving that decision to Pliyev.

Air Force

The two FKR cruise missile regiments with a total of 80 missiles and 80 nuclear warheads between them would be deployed as follows:

• One regiment “in the western region…” to destroy invasion fleets before their troops could land. The orders are similarly silent as to the authority to fire these FKRs.
• The second regiment would be deployed at Cuba’s eastern end prepared “…on signal from the General Staff [in Moscow]…to strike the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo.”

If Moscow ordered just one 12-kiloton FKR warhead fired at Guantanamo, the base and its personnel would be incinerated. It is important to remember that the U.S. intelligence community had no idea the FKR existed, let alone that it was in Cuba in such force. See chapter 55 in this series for more on the FKR (URL above).

The Frightening Aspects of These Orders

I find three aspects of Pliyev’s orders particularly appalling:

1. That the Soviet General Staff considered tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons no different from conventional field guns—just more powerful;
2. That the General Staff had apparently left it to Pliyev to determine who could authorize the nuclear Lunas and the nuclear Havana-area FKRs to be fired; and
3. That the Kremlin leadership and the Soviet General Staff apparently did not understand that if Pliyev’s forces fired any nuclear cruise missiles at American forces, the United States would unquestionably launch Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) against the Soviet Union.

It is worth repeating that in 1962 Washington had not the faintest idea that FKRs existed, let alone that so many of them were in Cuba, just waiting for the Americans to invade.

In my view,

• given that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been lobbying to invade Cuba for at least a year; and
• given that General Pliyev, not Moscow, would decide when to launch the FKRs and Lunas; and
• given that no one in the U.S. intelligence community knew that the FKRs even existed; then

those FKRs (and Lunas) were far more dangerous to world peace in 1962 than the Soviets’ strategic missiles in Cuba.

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Sources and Notes

The information on Khrushchev’s decision to send more nuclear weapons to Cuba comes from Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “The Pitsunda Decision: Khrushchev and Nuclear Weapons.” Bulletin 10, The Cold War International History Project, March 1998, pp. 226-227. Pitsunda was the town in Soviet Georgia where Khrushchev had a dacha. Khrushchev apparently did not approve the deployment of the R-11Ms, known to NATO as SCUD ballistic missiles.

Raymond L. Garhoff corrects some of what Fursenko and Naftali stated in their article and provides additional information in his “New Evidence on the Cuban Missile Crisis: Khrushchev, Nuclear Weapons, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” Bulletin 11, Cold War International History Project, Winter 1998, pp. 251-262.

These two articles appeared very soon after a huge trove of Soviet documents given to the Library of Congress by Soviet General Dmitri Volkogonov had been translated and made available to the public. I do not know the details of the Volkogonov gift.

The Volkogonov Papers was a huge trove of Soviet-era documents which former Soviet General Dmitri Volkogonov managed to convey to the Library of Congress in 1996.

Most of the information in this chapter comes from Raymond L. Garthoff’s “New Evidence on the Cuban Missile Crisis: Khrushchev, Nuclear Weapons, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” Bulletin 11, Cold War International History Project, Winter 1998, pp. 251-262.

The Soviet Navy’s coastal defense Sopka cruise missiles discussed in Chapter 55 were non-nuclear, so their use was under Pliyev’s control, without reference to Moscow.

Nuclear weapons are rated in kilotons and megatons. A kiloton is the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT. A megaton is the equivalent of one million tons of TNT—if one could imagine such a destructive force.

In 1962 the United States had tactical battlefield nuclear weapons deployed in Europe. I do not know the Rules of Engagement (ROE) that governed their use.