Che and nuclear weapons

[Karl Marx's Camel]

I have heard from various sources that Che said that if he was in charge of the nuclear weapons, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he would have fired them off. True or untrue?

[fernando]

true! I dont know if we should see this as something "evil"...imagine that the USSR would invade the US, their leaders would have fired nuclear weapons on major Russian cities as a response.

[Urban Guerrilla]

Fidel and Che were both furious at the fact that the Soviets withdrew the missles from Cuba. They both were set on retaliating against America if it meant using them :che:

[Karl Marx's Camel]

I don't think you actually answered the question, Urban...

[ComradeOm]

I've heard, though I've no sources, that Che was all for either using the missiles or threatening to use them. To be honest it wouldn't surprise me, it fits in with the image I've built up of the man.

[Urban Guerrilla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2005, 05:53 PM
I don't think you actually answered the question, Urban...
No, I didn't did I? Truth be told, I don't know if he was "the one in charge", but he and Castro did say that they were going to stare down the threat of US imperialism if it meant using the weapons :che:

[ColinH]

How soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis did he reportedly say this? I'm just wondering, because it sounds like a very emotionally-charged statement that was not thought through well at all.

[Urban Guerrilla]

The Cuban leadership stated this: 1) After the CIA had attempt to organize a counter revolutionary campaign 2) US planes bombed Cuba's airforce. Then after these incidents, Kennedy received aerial photographic proof of Soviet missles have been installed in Cuba and demanded the removal of them. So America was attacking Cuba before they knew Cuba had missles so, Cuba planned on using them :che:

[Severian]

No, it's untrue. Old Post:




Yet Guevara’s response to Sam Russell of the British Communist Party was that if the missiles had been under the control of the Cubans, they would have fired them against the US – in particular New York (Castañeda p.231, Anderson p.545).

Anybody ever play the game "telephone"? Guevara tells Russell tells Castaneda and Anderson....even if the British Kremlin-stooge Russell was honest, there's plenty of room for misunderstanding. And his honesty is questionable: the Kremlin, seeking to fend off Cuban criticism of its decision to make a deal in which Cuba was not consulted nor its interests protected, has long sought to portray the Cuban revolutionary leaders as madmen seeking nuclear war. The capitalists are of course not averse to this.

The cables between Fidel and Khrushev, and the public statements by Castro, Guevara, and others, tell a different story.

During the crisis, Cuba did advocate firing antiaircraft missiles to bring down U.S. spy planes overflying Cuba...those missiles were under Soviet control, so they were not fired except for one occasion when a U-2 was brought down by an officer acting without orders from Moscow. Probably this is what Guevara actually told Russell.

One should always be wary of some guy claiming based on alleged private comments that somebody's real policy was different from what all his actions and public statements say.

Khruschev attempted to misrepresent Castro's statements in much the same way, but in that case the text of the cables is available to show that Castro advocated no such thing, and immediately protested against Khruschev's misinterpretation.

In reality, the Cuban revolutionary leadership's disagreements with Soviet policy over this were:
1. Cuba advocated the missiles be openly deployed, proclaiming the sovereign right of self-defense.
2. Cuba advocated that spy flights over Cuban territory should be shot down. (And did fire its antiaircraft weapons at the lower-flying spy planes.)
3. Cuba objected to that an agreement was reached without consulting them. And that it gave no serious guarantees that aggression by the U.S. would be stopped.
4. Cuba objected to the agreement's provisions on "inspections" on their sovereign territory, and refused to allow any UN "inspectors". Because of this refusal, the U.S. never was formally bound by the agreement's promise not to invade Cuba. (Of course, such a promise isn't worth much anyway.)

Here's some of the letters between Castro and Khrushchev, on a PBS website (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/35_kennedy/psources/index.html#b) Of course, they leave out Castro's reply, and leave Khrushchev's misrepresentation as the last word!

Here's Castro's reply (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/621031%20Letter%20to%20Khrushchev.pdf)
"And I did not suggest to you, Comrade Khrushchev, that the USSR should be the aggressor, because that would be more than incorrect, that would be immoral and contemptible on my part."

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Thank you.

While we're at it, according to Carlos Franqui (there goes that name again), Fidel was waiting, and he got impatient, and he said to the central leadership or something like that: "This is how it is done/This is how a guerilla warrior do it".

Carlos claimed Fidel went to the Soviets where the missiles were held, and they looked up and saw a spy plane, Fidel asked how the missile system worked, and took control over it without permission, and activated it. Just a moment later, according to Carlos, the plane disappeared from the radar. This was apparently the U-2.

[perdido]

Che did say that but I'm not sure if he really ment it. I think it was something he said out of anger but wouldn't really have done it unless the US attacked them.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

The claim is apparently from the book of Jon Lee Anderson,
"Che Guevara: A revolutionary life".