In
the fall of ’62, brother Jeff and I were each doing our thing. He was
reluctantly learning Vietnamese – he had wanted Russian – at the Army Language
School (ALS) in Monterey while I hunkered down in Bloomington feverishly
preparing for my PhD exams at Indiana University (IU).
One
day in October I was surprised to find the Cold War swirling around me. I had
thought that day-to-day reality was behind me when I finished my tour on the front
lines of the great East-West conflict in Europe four years earlier. However, the
Soviets had secretly begun their build-up in Cuba during late summer. First, ground
troops were sent by sea from Leningrad. To avoid detection by US and British
aircraft routinely surveilling Soviet shipping out of the eastern Baltic, the
troops were kept out of sight below decks by day.
Even
when the literary-minded infantry commander requested permission to go topside
as the ship was passing through the narrow strait off the Danish coast – just
to glimpse the legendary castle at Elsinore where Shakespeare’s Hamlet was set – the ship’s captain
turned him down. To all intents and purposes, the vessels that NATO overflights
observed were just ordinary Soviet freighters routinely carrying cargo to Cuba.
Not
until early October when Soviet missile launchers had been emplaced in Cuba and
the defensive ground force was encamped ashore did the US detect Khrushchev’s
near fait accompli. The ominous ’13 days in October’ ensued with National
Security Advisor Bundy convening an ad hoc ‘executive committee’ (Ex-Comm)
chaired by the President and his brother to cope with the crisis.
__________________________________________________________
During the crisis, anticipating missile strikes on their bases,
the Strategic Air Command dispersed 200 bombers with nuclear loads to civilian
airports.
_________________________________________________________
Meanwhile
at normally placid IU, a fellow grad student in Soviet Studies, the left
activist George Shriver had done his political work well. Although he had
withdrawn from grad school in the spring of ’62, moved to New York, and opted
for a career as a Socialist Workers Party (SWP) staffer, George left behind at
the university a solidly organized, albeit small SWP affiliate, the Young
Socialist Alliance (YSA), and its off-shoot, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
(FPCC).
Coming
to the end of my time at IU that fall semester, I was unaware of those small
campus activist groups. A typical liberal, left politics were not my thing. My
PhD coursework completed, I was intensely studying for the doctoral exams in
November.
The
exams loomed large in a grad student’s life. If one passed successfully, one
was admitted to ‘candidacy’, meaning you moved on to researching and writing a
dissertation – in effect, a book-length manuscript – toward attaining a PhD
degree and beyond, an academic career.
For
me then, nothing had higher priority in October ’62 – not even the hair-raising
confrontation between the United States and the USSR over little Cuba just 90
miles off-shore. Likewise, the unfolding Cuban Missile Crisis made barely a
ripple in the routine at ALS on the California coast. Jeff and his fellow GI
students continued to attend language classes six hours a day while the Kennedy
(JFK) Administration was quietly building up its assets for the low-key but
escalating war in Vietnam.
Meanwhile
off the Florida coast, tensions were rising. Soviet anti-aircraft missiles
brought down an American U-2 over Cuba while another US spy plane, actually on
a high altitude weather mission, accidently strayed into Soviet airspace, a provocation
even at the best of times. Soviet MiGs scrambled, US fighters rose to meet them,
and the errant U-2 pilot barely escaped, not to mention that an aerial dogfight
was avoided.
Serious
people in the States feared the possibility of full-scale armed conflict
between the superpowers, one that could rapidly escalate into nuclear war. They
weren’t far off the mark as we subsequently learned. In the Ex-Comm meetings in
the White House, shielded from public view, the generals were strongly pushing
JFK to attack Cuba and take out the Soviet missile batteries soon expected to
be ready to threaten American cities and military installations.
_____________________________________________________________
The protestors – Fair Play for Cuba stalwarts – were trying to
march down a
broad avenue amidst several thousand shouting and cursing fellow
students.
____________________________________________________________
Anticipating
missile strikes on Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases, the Pentagon dispersed
200 bombers loaded with nuclear bombs to civilian airports from Portland to
Philadelphia. In turn, the Army mobilized a quarter of a million troops for an
invasion of Cuba – my parents living in Miami told me the roads south to the
sea were clogged with military vehicles. Even inexperienced, first-year student
nurses in training at hospitals across the country were put on alert for
casualties from a nuclear attack.
Naturally
I was deeply concerned – who wouldn’t be – and I had to make a very fundamental
decision. Time was short before my PhD exams, but so was the nuclear fuse lit
between the superpowers. With WWIII waiting in the wings, should I hang it up –
forget about studying day and night and have a final fling before everything
came to an end – or should I push on. I voted for a future.
As
the missile crisis deepened, I was walking across campus to the library one
afternoon to collect more books and saw a clutch of people – perhaps eight in
number – carrying signs critical of the President’s naval blockade of Cuba.
American warships were on station to prevent Soviet freighters from delivering the
missiles, the final step in the dangerous contretemps underway. The protestors
– FPCC stalwarts – were trying to march down one of IU’s broad avenues amidst a
huge crowd of several thousand shouting and cursing fellow students.†
Occasionally
a hostile student would dash out of the crowd, snatch a protester’s sign, and
tear it up to stormy cheers. Farther along the march route,
another
onlooker ran out, threw a punch, and a brief scuffle ensued – the marcher
slugged was trying to shield the two women at the center of the group.
Throughout
the ordeal, campus security and the city cops stood by impassively as the FPCC
folks struggled on, advocating at that moment as the nation was rallying around
the flag probably the most unpopular position imaginable. As I walked on, I
thought, ‘God, those people are brave’.
Fortunately
for the world, cool heads prevailed in the Kremlin and at the White House, and
the crisis came to a peaceful resolution. We all breathed a sigh of relief. It
might have been otherwise if JFK had not fended off General Curtis LeMay and
other hawks on the Ex-Comm pushing for a preemptive air and land attacks on
Cuba.
After
the USSR collapsed in ’91, it was revealed in Moscow that the Soviet combat
brigade in Cuba had been equipped with tactical nuclear weapons, and the
commander was authorized to use them if American forces came ashore.
Castro
was furious the Soviets had backed off and pulled their missile batteries,
leaving revolutionary Cuba high and dry. He was well aware of the CIA’s
attempts to assassinate him and assumed the ‘imperialist’ United States would
not stop at taking him out, but would launch another invasion of the island.
At
IU, but for a few bruises, IU’s pro-Cuba contingent survived its ordeal to
protest another day. Jeff finished at the language school and shipped out to
Vietnam, and I passed my PhD exams and headed for Moscow late summer ‘63 for a
year of dissertation research for my doctorate.
I
had been selected for the official US-Soviet graduate student exchange designed
to encourage better mutual understanding to help avoid war. The idea was that
each side’s young scholars would get an up-close experience in their respective
societies. I was assigned to the law school at Moscow University. It was to be
a remarkable year.
My
arrival at Moscow Law School in September ’63 was preceded by Castro’s state
visit to the USSR that spring. Khrushchev wanted to make amends to the unhappy
Cuban leader for the Soviets’ abrupt retreat from Cuba. Castro had agreed to go
to Moscow to discuss a very generous Soviet aid package as a kind of
reparations. The trip was organized around the May Day celebrations, the second
most important holiday in the Soviet calendar.
It
was the most elaborate welcome ever extended to a foreign head of state. A red
carpet was laid out from Lenin’s Tomb to Swan Lake. Castro reviewed the gala
May Day parade in Red Square from atop Lenin’s Mausoleum along with the Soviet
leadership – a rare honor for a foreign leader.
Castro &
Khrushchev, May Day parade, 1963
Soviet
crowds were ecstatic over the charismatic Cuban leader, a genuine revolutionary
hero. In the late ‘50s American media had lionized the guerrillas for their
daring forays against the Batista regime, so one can easily imagine the
exuberant Soviet press adulation that preceded Castro.
For
Khrushchev, the visit was of the utmost significance as it helped repair the
damage to his image with his comrades after the humiliating withdrawal from the
Caribbean. It also shored up his flagging leadership position in the international
communist movement – for the time being.
________________________________________________________
Soviet crowds were ecstatic over Castro, a genuine revolutionary
hero.
______________________________________________________
Fidel
understood the great leverage he had and extracted a huge political, economic,
and military aid package. On the symbolic side of the state visit, the USSR
heaped honors and laurels on him, including an honorary Doctorate of Laws from
what would shortly become my Soviet alma mater, Moscow University (MGU). The
degree was conferred in the Great Hall at MGU’s Lenin Hills campus high above
the River Moskva. The citation noted Castro’s contribution to the “application
of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine to State and Law.”
In
his acceptance remarks before the throng of students, including my soon-to-be
fellow law students, Fidel told them that his first big mistake in life was to
study law in a capitalist society with its main emphasis on commercial,
property, and real estate law, “laws of a society doomed to disappear.” He
assured his audience to rousing cheers that Marxism-Leninism would guide the
solutions to all of Cuba’s constitutional, legal, and institutional questions.
Castro
went on to tour the length and breadth of that vast country from Murmansk near
the Arctic Circle to ancient Samarkand in the Soviet Central Asian desert. At
every stop he was enthusiastically feted by the local establishment and the
general public. After more than 40 days, he returned triumphantly to Havana.
Castro and
Soviet sailors in Leningrad, 1963
I
arrived in Moscow for my research year in early September. The university was
still on summer break so I had time to look around. I made a point of going to
several Soviet movies – nothing remarkable, ordinary fare – primarily to ‘tune
up’ my Russian language ear. The only one I recall was a WWII drama which,
given the country’s staggering losses of 27 million dead, was in ’63 still well
within living memory of nearly all.
The
scenario followed a predictable plot line – first the Soviet forces suffered
serious reverses, but then regrouped and through great heroism exacted a
terrible toll on the enemy. What surprised me though was that all around me in
the theater older men were weeping.
A
few weeks later I was no longer the only occupant on my floor of the dorm – the
law students had come back for fall semester. Most had been working in
Kazakhstan, one of the Soviet Union’s Central Asian republics, performing their
pro bono ‘social duty’ helping bring in the harvest. Moscow Law School soon
came alive, and it was time for me to present myself to my Soviet advisor.
The
law school was near the city center, lodged in a time-worn 18th
century building not far from the Kremlin. It was a rather ornate structure and
must have been at one time the grand residence of a wealthy merchant.
At
the appointed hour, I climbed the stairs to the Jurisprudence Department on the
second floor. The door stood open, and I entered the cavernous room with
elaborately ornamented flourishes along the high ceiling, décor I’d never
before seen in an academic office.
My
advisor, Dr Professor A I Denisov, a nationally known jurist, chaired the department
and had assembled his faculty to welcome the American visitor. For me, a rookie
in Russia, it was somewhat daunting as they all rose to greet me with customary
handshakes. Andrei Ivanovich introduced me to each colleague, several of whose
names I recognized from having read their books.
Everyone was cordial, but it was still
little overwhelming since the huge windows overlooking the street below were
open – AC not an option – and noise rising from passing buses and trolleys sometimes
drowned out the chair’s deep hoarse voice. Finally, an ice-breaker of sorts as
I was introduced to a junior docent about my age.
He
asked where I lived in the States. Told him my parents lived in south Florida,
at which he lit up with a big smile and said, “I’ll be flying over there in a
few days.” He was bound for Havana for the academic year to lecture at the law
school through simultaneous translation on Soviet administrative law.
The
docent was part of the vanguard of the big Soviet aid package negotiated by
Castro during his spring visit – one of a number of law profs being dispatched
to Cuba, effectively to transmit the Soviet legal model. Coincidentally, a
generation earlier when East Europe fell behind the Iron Curtain, Professor
Denisov, as a young scholar, had performed the same function in Communist
Bulgaria as the new regime there struggled to put a Soviet-style system in
place.
As
had been the case in Communist East Europe earlier, by the late ‘60s most of
the textbooks used in the Cuban law schools were verbatim translations of
Soviet texts into Spanish.
I
soon settled into a routine in Moscow – research at the Lenin Library, classes
at the law school, and occasional forays into the impressive world of Soviet
high culture, music, ballet, and theater. One evening that fall I was at the
Bolshoi Theater with a group of fellow American exchange students. We had gone
to see the Russian opera Boris Godunov.
As foreign visitors in the USSR, we were privileged to have excellent orchestra
seats at nominal cost.
Bolshoi Theater,
Moscow
We
arrived early and waited for the curtain, which was delayed a few minutes. I
had noticed that the theater’s first three rows were empty and cordoned off by
ushers. Finally, some 75 Cuban Army officers trooped in and filled the seats as
honored guests of the evening. They doubtlessly didn’t know Russian, so what they
might have thought of that melodramatic opera – a dark tale of royal intrigue
in the 17th century Kremlin – we’ll never know.
During
intermission in the lobby, the officers kept to themselves. Just as the US
trained allied Latin American military personnel in our higher command schools,
the Bolshoi’s guests were also part of the Soviet aid program to revolutionary
Cuba. They were in Moscow for advanced tactical training in Soviet Army
schools.
______________________________________________________________
North Vietnamese students posted a large sign in our dorm lounge
gleefully welcoming Kennedy’s death;
Russian students tore it down in a fury. _________________________________________________________
During
my Moscow sojourn, I became aware of Cuba for the last time in late ’63. I was
in my room in the Lenin Hills dorms when the terrible news arrived that JFK had
been assassinated in Dallas just an hour earlier on the other side of the world.††
There
were just a few Americans in the dorm, and we were desperate for information.
From what we could glean from special Soviet news announcements interspersed
with funereal music, Voice of America shortwave broadcasts, and phone calls to
the embassy, the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, had a possible Cuban connection.
He was married to a young Soviet woman and had lived for a time in the USSR. Once
back in the States, he identified himself with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
My
Russian dorm mates greatly admired Castro and were quite upset at the
suggestion that Cuba might be involved in the death of the President.
Paradoxically, they also thought well of JFK even though he was the chief
adversary of their country.
Sub
rosa they appreciated JFK’s youth and vigor as a leader. Unspoken, but well
understood, was an implicit comparison with their own sluggish, geriatric
leadership. When North Vietnamese students from the floor below posted a large
Russian-language sign in our dorm lounge that gleefully welcomed Kennedy’s
death, the Russian students tore it down in a fury.
Two
days later, when Jack Ruby shot Oswald before the cameras of the world, the
Soviet public was shocked and dismayed by our gun-crazy culture, and nothing
further was heard of a Cuban link. For me, dissertation research beckoned, and
Cuba fell off my radar screen.
I
returned to the States the following summer, and several months later
Khrushchev’s comrades ousted him in a bloodless coup. The bill of particulars
against him included a number of his policies dubbed ‘harebrained schemes’,
among which the USSR’s Cuban debacle loomed large.
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