Talk:Cuban Missile Crisis

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[edit] Images

More images needed... perhaps some of warheads? Redwolf24 10:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Hmm. Here are a few which could be thrown in:
    • Principle players: Khrushschev, Kennedy, Kennedy's cabinet meeting during the Crisis
    • Tech stuff: U-2, Jupiter IRBM (removed from Turkey)
  • ...it's a start. --Fastfission 12:05, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
  • After watching the movie, The Good Shepherd (2006), I was interested in finding information about the infamous Bay of Pigs Invasion in the 1960s. I then clicked on the Cuban Missile Crisis link and was horrified to see that there were very little photographs and very poor examples; I scoured the internet for public domain images in reference to this subject matter and posted them in the article. Now it is much "gooder", hope you all enjoy! -Signaleer 07:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sputnik 22 incident

After its launch on October 25th the Soviet Mars mission Sputnik 22 disintegrated above the earth, spreading debris that entered the atmosphere. The Sputnik 22 article says: This occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the debris was detected by the U.S. Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) radar in Alaska and was for a while feared to be the start of a Soviet nuclear ICBM attack. I wonder if this is worth mentioning in the Cuban Missile Crisis article, too. It might only be a marginal note in the events, still I find it somewhat characteristic for the tight atmosphere and nervousness of those days. --Proofreader 17:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

This is an inaccurate addition and has been removed from the Sputnik 22 article.59.101.161.148 15:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
My bad, I've checked the source and it is in fact accurate. The selected section was restored in the Sputnik 22 article. 61.68.187.174 04:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Critics point out..."

Recently added:

Critics of the so-called blockade point out that not a single Soviet flag ship was ever boarded by the U.S. Navy or ordered to go to Miami for inspection. The ship Bucharest was allowed to continue on to Cuba without interference, as were other vessels that didn't have missile containers visible above deck. The extent to which the USSR continued to covertly ship ICBMs to Cuba is not known.
  • Do any of these critics have names?
  • "so-called" is not NPOV. The article is correct in stating it was a blockade, or would you have every reference to block or blockade prefixed by "so-called"?
  • "No Soviet flag ship was boarded." Is this article in error? [1] Is this a quibble over Soviet-flagged and Soviet-chartered?
  • The Bucharest was carrying oil.
  • "The extent to which the USSR continued to covertly ship ICBMs to Cuba is not known." First of all, the missiles in question were not inter-continental but of intermediate range (IRBM's). And yes, it is known that the Soviets did not ship missiles to Cuba. Missiles of this type require launchers and their deployment could not be covert. And why would the Soviets risk their deal with the US which ended the CMC, as technology would improve in the 1960's to allow ICBM's launched from Soviet territory reach the United States? patsw 03:33, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Pat, this page is an aberration. Your concerns are entirely correct, please feel free to make the relevant amendments.-- Zleitzen(talk) 14:48, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
By the way, "so-called" is appropriate as the US government regarded it as a "Quarantine," as a blockade is technically an act of war. 58.165.108.151 (talk) 06:09, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Historical Note??

Um, isn't this entire article an historical note? Why do we need a seperate section to callout historical facts in an article of historical facts?

This needs to be verified and then written into the body of the article. Padillah 17:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


This matter almost took the world to nuclear war, it is difficult to imagine the matter being relegated to a historical note. El Jigue208.65.188.149 23:33, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Che Guevara

I had read somewhere that Che Guevara had argued with Castro to take control of the missiles and launch them at the United States. Does anyone have information on this? The Che Guevara page just states that Guevara was quoted as saying that had the U.S. launched a strike against Cuba, then the missiles would have been launched against the U.S. �The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jaedglass (talk " contribs) 17:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Storyline

Storyline is hard to disentangle if taken as encyclopedic reference (unless you read from top to bottom with bated breath and meticulous timing notes).

All "that day", "this day", "one hour later", etc. should be replaced with specific dates and hours.

For example, "Around noon that day a Lockheed U-2" should become "On Oct 27, around noon, U-2 ..." etc.

Naturally this job should be done by someone fluent in the subject to avoid piling up errors. This is why I do not touch it.

[edit] plagarism regarding air strike possibility

In section "Planning a response:"

"JFK concluded that an air strike would give the Soviets "a clear line" to take Berlin, the way they took Hungary after the 1956 Suez invasion. He stated that our allies would think of us as "trigger-happy Americans" who lost Berlin because we couldn't endure the situation in Cuba."

This seems to be plagiarism from a summary of an audio transcript at http://www.hpol.org/transcript.php?id=12.

--Srbcomp 18:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed that this is a case of plagiarism. I have corrected and summarised the transcript to keep it intact and avoid copyright breaches. --Warfreak 11:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opening paragraph

Hi guys. I have just stumbled upon this page, and I have found the opening paragraph to be rather vague to someone like myself who was unaware of the Cuban Missile Crisis (or anything to do with it). I have a problem with this piece of information: "when U.S. reconnaissance imagery revealing installations on the island were shown to U.S. President...". Revealing installations on an island? What does that mean? You have to read down several pages before you can see that these instillations refer to missile launching facilities capable of launching missiles than could reaching America. Omitting this information assumes the reader has some background information on the subject. I think someone should modify (I have no expertise in this area myself) to include a little more detail.

[edit] Time that photos were shown to Kennedy

In the first paragraph we are told that "The crisis began on October 14, 1962 when U.S. reconnaissance imagery revealing installations on the island were shown to U.S. President John F. Kennedy", but further down it says that "the missiles were not discovered by the U.S. until a U-2 flight of October 14 clearly showed the construction of an SS-4 site near San Cristobal in Pinar del Río Province in Western Cuba...The photographs were shown to Kennedy on October 16." Surely this is a clear contradiction.


The opening paragraph is wrong to say that the US missiles in Turkey were placed along the Turkish-Soviet border. Later in the piece it is stated that the missiles were located in Izmir, which is on the western (not eastern) border of Turkey. I think it is a bad idea to begin this with a discussion of Kennedy and Latin America, because it obscures the fact that this was in fact a Cuban AND Turkish missile crisis - it was about Soviet missiles in Cuba and American missiles in Turkey! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.247.208.153 (talk) 21:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Content licensing

I was looking for references to add to the article, to check out some facts, when I noticed that this site has, almost word for word, large sections of text present in this article. Did the site copy it from Wikipedia (without mentioning that), or the other way around? Ourai BƒA 19:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I see this all the time. Little sites will copy huge tracts of the wiki onto their server in order to drive up their chance of being hit in Google on random searches. They do this because that gets them more page views and click-throughs, and thus more money from AdSense. Most of the time they at least bother to put up a notice of where the content came from, and include a backlink to the original, but in this case they have done neither. I have written them an e-mail. Maury 22:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Perspective

This article does not adequately provide multiple perspectives. For instance there is no mention in here that what the Soviet Union set out to do was to prevent the United States from attacking Cuba. I mean with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles the Soviet Union could hit the United States with or without the missiles being stationed in Cuba. Nikita Khrushchev put it like this: "...Our goal was precisely the opposite: we wanted to keep the Americans from invading Cuba, and, to that end, we wanted to make them think twice by confronting them with our missiles. this goal we achieved - but not without undergoing a period of perilous tension" - N. Khrushchev (1977), Khrushchev Remembers, Penguin, London, p.528

This is quite crucial! One perspective I read pointed out that the missile crisis in effect breached the Monroe doctrine. Kennedy accepted a communist Cuba allied with the Warsaw Pact off the United States coast in return for the removal of the missiles. From a Russian/Cuban perspective this could be construed as a victory or acceptable trade-off rather than a victory for Kennedy's foreign policy.130.237.175.198 10:58, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, this is really striking through the whole artile, it's from an American perspective. Like someone says below, USSR is treated like a 'black box' where a message or action goes in, and a message or action comes out. Interspercing this article with USSR perspective would make it very interesting to read. [Nick] 22 April 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.240.181.41 (talk) 12:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Times

In what time zone are the times in the article given? I see lots of "This event happened at x PM", but no indication of a time zone hi i a .-Wafulz 18:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Updates regarding the Timeline Problems

There was some criticism about contradicting time mentions, especially regarding the the start of the incident. The photos were taken on October 14, were presented to JFK two days later, on October 16 and Kennedy's widely known TV statement was made on the October 22.

Between the 16th and 22nd of October, there was a relatively peaceful period, sort of like the silence before hurricane. During the period, the hardliners in the Pentagon and the White House have tried to persuade Kennedy into some kind of a military response, at least a surgical strike. But both Kennedy and Khruschev have been reluctant to take military action. As a precaution, the military command deploys the Navy in Florida, to intervene in case the crisis does not get resolved until the end of the month.

On 26th, Khruschev offers to withdraw the nuclear weapons if US promises not to attack Cuba. On 27th, this offer expands to include the withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles deployed in Turkey. During this diplomatic traffic, Castro starts to distribute arms to the people, in an effort to create a militia army to resist a possible US invasion.

In the meanwhile, US reconnaisance flights continue to increase, increasing the armed Cubans' enthusiasm to respond back. On the 27th, a group of armed Cuban militia opens fire on a USAF U-2 plane. This alerts the Soviet base in Cuba and failing to contact Moscow, the base takes the initiative to launch a missile at the plane on the mistaken assumption the war has finally started.

This response panicks both Washington, on the assumption that the Soviets are willing to do whatever it takes to get their offer accepted and Moscow, in expectation of a military reprisal that will trigger a large-scale war. On the 28th, as Khruschev was preparing to declare that he's dropping the condition of the withdrawal of the missiles deployed in Turkey, Kennedy accepts the Soviet offer and the crisis ends.

[edit] Adlai Stevenson

why is there no mention of Adlai Stevenson's role in the resolution of the missile crisis? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.80.36.13 (talk) 19:41, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cuban-American Tensions

The following words are a matter of opinion and make direct judgments on President Kennedy (note bolding): "Moreover, President Kennedy's vacillation and pusillanimity, ending in Cuba's Bay of Pigs fiasco, had emboldened Nikita Khrushchev to go ahead with the construction of the Berlin Wall three months later and his even bolder, secret plan, to bring nuclear missiles to the doorsteps of the United States, 15 months later."

Rather than openly dispute neutrality, I'm changing these words to sound more neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jtk6204 (talk • contribs) 17:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Role of elitist thought ignoring early warning signs

There were a large number of reports on the presence of missiles in Cuba before this was confirmed by CIA overflights. These were ignored by what can most charitably be described as elitist intelligence analysts in the US and in Great Britain. E. Jigue208.65.188.149 20:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you have sources on these reports? As I understand from declassified NSA reports, and Dino Brugioni, overflights began when there was SIGINT indication of Soviet activity. Earlier U-2 flights had stayed outside Cuban airspace. Do you have specific "elitist intelligence analysts" that you can cite? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV and Sources tags added

This whole article deals exclusively with what happened in the US government. It seems as if the Soviet government is some kind of 'black box': you put in a letter from Kennedy, and out comes a response, but there was no decision making, no meetings, prior to issuing the response. And the whole article is very poorly sourced. 85.224.198.207 (talk) 13:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

'Very poorly sourced'? What, is the list not extensive enough for you? Eaglestorm (talk) 13:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

all that is wronggg! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.171.160.135 (talk) 18:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I just dropped by and see no need for the tags and will remove them. They may be replaced if someone wants, if they are more clear about what they mean. Raggz (talk) 00:08, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 'Military Capability'

--138.251.233.117 (talk) 16:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This phrase is misleading in the 8th part about 'Planning a Response'. Whilst it did increase the Soviet capability to strike US soil by 50%, the Soviets capability to strike other areas was still much greater than this.

--138.251.233.117 (talk) 16:21, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed text concerning Dana Perino

I have removed the following text:

In December 2007, Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino confessed not having any knowledge of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This information does not seem to have relevance to the topic of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fknight 05:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

  • I concur. It's unsourced as well. I heard the NPR interview where she said it, but it has nothing to do with the actual Crisis. Mr Which??? 05:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Q3ST10N

What does that 2,??? tons thing in the first part refer to? 88.195.103.107 (talk) 22:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Good point. It needs to be sourced; I don't remember it from NSA declassified documents and I've read a lot of them.
Given the amount of equipment in a military buildup, 2000-some tons is tiny, and, unless volume were an issue, easily would fit in one ship. If it's an accurate reference, it must refer to a specific shipment. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Castro mad at missiles?

I have heard that Castro was not mad at having the missiles and actually encouraged Khrushchev to use them as a preemptive strike against the US. Here's a link for the video interview with McNamara in which he reveals this:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v3U3ATRiboI

Also, I've read that Che himself said to a London reporter that they would have used the missiles on the US if they had stayed in Cuba. This is in William Breuer's "Vendetta! Fidel Castro and the Kennedy Brothers." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.225.217.132 (talk) 02:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Movement of soviet ships in blockade

At the time, twenty ships were en-route to Cuba from the Soviet Union. Sixteen of these were clearly identified as reversing course, and only the tanker Bucharest continued towards the U.S. lines. The other two, the Gagarin and Komiles were later discovered only a few miles from the U.S. lines, and they were being escorted by a Soviet submarine positioned between the two ships.

This doesn't seem to add up -- of the 20 ships, only 19 are mentioned here. The changelog shows that the number was changed from 19 to 20 to account for the Marcula, but the subsequent text needs to be updated to match. Part of the confusion seems to be that the Marcula was not strictly a Soviet ship.

Also, the "Crisis deepens" section contains "Later that day, at 5:43 p.m., the commander of the blockade effort ordered the USS Kennedy to intercept and board the Lebanese freighter Marcula.", which seems to skip over the important detail that President Kennedy supposedly personally chose the Marcula as the first intercept (as related in 'Thirteen Days', anyway). For that matter, a clarification that the USS Kennedy was apparently named after President Kennedy's older brother might be relevant color.

Not knowledgable enough about the event to make the edits myself, though.

--Ploer (talk) 23:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] US-centric perspective

The article is very detailed about what went on in US inner circles and meetings, but is lacking a lot of details about the Soviet side. Maybe there's some information in the Russian article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.1.217.185 (talk) 10:03, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removed 'Foreshadowing' and 'early reports ignored' sections

(removed sections can be viewed at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cuban_Missile_Crisis&oldid=181377179)

These two sections were pretty unpolished and disrupted the flow of the article. Older revisions read much more smoothly without these sections.

Addressing the question of why pre- 14 October reports of missiles were discounted seems relevant, but would probably need to be reworked as a short aside later in the article. The current 'cuban-american tensions' section provides a much more appropriate introduction to the situation.

-- Ploer (talk) 23:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

From declassified NSA documents as well as Dino Brugioni, my impression is that the early HUMINT reports, which may indeed have come through the FBI, were not verifiable. Some reports of "rockets on trucks" turned out to be construction materials. SIGINT, however, started to reveal a significant Soviet buildup, which triggered much more detailed IMINT by U-2's flying outside Cuban airspace. One of those U-2 oblique photographs showed characteristic SAM and/or MRBM construction, and that made the NCA order overflights by high-altitude Air Force U-2s (the CIA recently had stopped flying them) and low-altitude Navy RF-8's. These gave confirmation of the offensive missiles. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Maybe some of this can be worked into the 'American early reports' section. Right now that section doesn't hold together that well, but I think the placement and the idea of pulling out all of the discussion of pre- 14 october warnings into that section makes sense. -- Ploer (talk) 23:42, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Looks like the originals of some citations are missing, perhaps in earlier edits. NSA's 1962 document archive is at http://www.nsa.gov/cuba/cuba00010.cfm, and there are other intelligence community documents at the GWU National Security Archive that could stand more specific references. Hilsman is another source on the analysis. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Unclear missile weights...?

To a novice in this subject, under US Nuclear advantage, this is very unclear:

The heavy (276-ton), bulky Soviet R-7 Semyorka ported a (3-ton), 3-megaton warhead 5,800 miles (9,330 km); the lighter, smaller (130-ton) U.S. Atlas ported a (1.5-ton) 3.8-megaton warhead 11,500 miles (18,510 km).[8]

3 ton 3 megaton? What? I'm sure there's an easy explanation but I have no idea what that means and to a novice it sounds like contradictions. 65.242.61.34 (talk) 16:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The physical weight of the warhead is 3 tons, but it has the explosive power of 3 million tons of TNT. One of the critical trends in nuclear weapon design is reducing the physical weight while increasing the explosive power. For example, the Hiroshima bomb (from memory) weighed 4.5 tons, but had the explosive power of 16-20 kilotons of TNT. A modern warhead, such as the W88, weighs around 800 pounds (360 KG) or less, but has the explosive power of 475 kilotons of TNT.
That a relatively small weight has the power of an immensely greater amount of conventional explosives is one of the distinctive characteristics of nuclear weapons. The drive to miniaturize is principally driven by the limited weight a missile can carry; bombers usually can carry much heavier weights.
Perhaps a little off topic, but low-yield "tactical" nuclear weapons have been made obsolete, in many situations, by precision guided munitions (PGM). Consider attacking a refinery, which is covers a fairly large area and might well need a nuclear weapon to be sure everything is blown up. If, however, a 250 pound PGM can steer directly into the master control panel of the refinery, the refinery may well be out of service for a very long time. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] General organization

I've noticed that there is a degree of duplication with respect to several areas, which actually give multiple sources if combined:

  • What the US knew before the Crisis (U-2, Penkovsky, etc.); Dulles briefings to JFK/LBJ during campaig
  • Designation and description of Soviet MRBM/IRBM
  • Designation and description of US IRBM

My thought is that the article could stand an overall edit and tightening, but I don't want to create edit conflicts. Can we reach consensus, perhaps, on an outline of a revised article?

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

i am doing a National History Day project on this and was wondering if any of you can vouch for any of these aouthors. The project is due in 2 days.72.205.28.213 (talk) 23:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "vouch for"? I have met Dino Brugioni and talked with him, but people like Roger Hilsman are well-known authorities. As far as some of the reasons for the perceived nuclear gap, I'm less concerned about the authors than some of the assertions, such as John von Neumann being uniquely responsible for the computing. Important, yes. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 01:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article does not mention that US attacked 4 Soviet nuclear armed Subs

There was a documentary on TV several years ago in which the captains of several Soviet diesel subs were interviewed. They claim that during the Cuban missle crisis they had been attacked with depth charges by US naval ships and forced to the surface. They said they had nuclear tipped torpedoes ready to fire and that had been authorized to use them if the subs were attacked. They wanted to contact Moscow but could not because they were under water. It would seem that they were the real heroes for not firing them at our naval forces in response to being attacked. I don't remember if the TV program was able to independantly verify this story, but it did get broadcasted. No, I don't remember where (the History or the Discovery channel I think). Someone must be aware of this story. WJM277 (talk) 05:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Please provide sources to back your claim. --Eaglestorm (talk) 08:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps I can amplify -- the devil is in the details. Yes, the Soviet sub had nuclear launch authority under conditions that it were sinking. No, the US did not drop true depth charges. Yes, the US did drop signaling charges, which can't actually hurt a submarine, but are used in training and also to alert a hostile sub, being chased, that it has been sufficiently localized to attack. For example, at times it was standard procedure to drop signaling charges on an unidentified submarine that got too close to US ships (any sub not identified as friendly is presumed hostile at a certain distance); these are warning shots and would be easy to differentiate from real depth charges.
Source: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/press3.htm

In the middle of this sequence of escalating tensions, according to new documents released today, the US Navy was dropping a series of "signaling depth charges" (equivalent to hand grenades) on a Soviet submarine at the quarantine line. Navy deck logs show the depth charges at 1659 and 1729 military time. At the conference table in Havana were the US Navy watch officer, Captain John Peterson, who ordered the depth charges as part of standard operating procedure for signaling submarines, and the Soviet signals intelligence officer, Vadim Orlov, on the receiving end inside submarine B-59, where the depth charges felt like "sledgehammers on a metal barrel." Unbeknownst to the Navy, the submarine carried a nuclear-tipped torpedo with orders that allowed its use if the submarine was "hulled" (hole in the hull from depth charges or surface fire).

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:25, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. military, 1st Inf. Div., 121st Signal Bn

Perhaps it was overlooked, but McCoy AFB, Orlando, Florida (now part of Orlando International Airport) was not mentioned. We were sent there to set up communications before the general population knew anything. The U2's also brought their pictures back to this base. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.62.107.118 (talk) 15:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DEFCON 2 in the clear?

A source from this would be very interesting indeed, as part of validating such an order is being able to decrypt it; they are never sent in the clear and it would take a special procedure to do so. Even if the message were sent in the clear, it would probably contain an alerting Emergency Action Message and possibly an additional authenticator. Just a code word without authentication would be, to the best of my knowledge, something Strategic Air Command crews would be trained to ignore -- a fictional but plausible analysis is the situation in the novel Fail-Safe.

There's no question the Soviets could have picked up significantly increased activity in general, and striking actions like dispersing B-47 medium bombers to civilian airports.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:18, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

There is now a source, but it is just a timeline, with no explanation on how nuclear-related messages were sent completely in the clear. Please provide details; this claim goes against everything I have ever seen on US strategic alerts, public and not. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:13, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Constant vandalism

I am at a loss to understand why this article receives so much vandalism. If there is an admin present, I request this article be protected from new and anon users.----Asher196 (talk) 14:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Didn't see this post, but I have just semiprotected the article. I set it to 48 hours just for starters, but that might be too short. Let me know what you think. --Masamage ♫ 03:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Anonymous vandalism again today. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 21:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I have created a subpage for listing IPs that have vandalized the page, along with vandalism discussion: Vandalism SubPage

Eoag (talk) 21:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] SS-5 IRBM sites

I edited the text about SS-5 IRBM's because it has been proven that no IRBM's were ever shipped to Cuba. This is easily verifiable information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.87.62.190 (talk) 17:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

If it is easily verifiable, please provide verification that contradicts such sources as Brugioni. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] While Brugioni concentrates deeply on the IMINT, Hilsman may give a slightly broader view.

Hi, the article seems to read quite well, right up until this sentence (as per subject heading). The sentence seems to make no sense, as neither "Brugioni" nor "Hilsman" are mentioned previously in the article, and the two sentences seem rather fragmented despite this. If no one has any objections, I shall remove these two sentences and their references, or does someone want to volunteer to expand this so that it makes sense? --Rebroad (talk) 22:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I expanded them. Brugioni and Hilsman are identified by the footnotes on the sentence, and I usually assume that if there's one name in a sentence, the footnote will give further detail. Is there still a problem with the sentence? These are two extremely good sources on the intelligence side of the crises; I've been lucky enough to talk to Brugioni, and, in a subsequent lecture, he compared and contrasted the two viewpoints. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Punctuation

Hi, guys. Hate to sound rude and all, but the punctuation of this article is horrible! I couldn't believe all the mistakes. I know that the punctuation isn't the main point of an article, but it certainly helps. I think something should be done here! 189.164.148.48 (talk) 23:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moscow-Washington hot line versus hotline

The Aftermath section of this article refers to the article Moscow-Washington hot line. Both the term hotline and hot line are correct. However, upon my reading this article today, the Moscow-Washington hot line link was reported as a new link. I believe that the author intended this referent to go to the topic of the Moscow-Washington hotline article. The easy answer would have been to change this referent to the hotline article, however I was unable to do so due to the Cuban Missile Crisis article's locked status.

Nonetheless, owing to the fact that both hotline and hot line are valid terms, it probably makes sense to have both variants available to those searching on Moscow-Washington hot line or Moscow-Washington hotline. For the purposes of this article, however, I believe that the referent should be changed to Moscow-Washington hotline for the sake of intrawiki consistency (owing to the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis article is, as far as I can tell, the only article to refer to this topic using the hot line variant, with all other such references going to the hotline variant).

These comments are also documented on the Talk:Moscow-Washington hot line page.

Pagoda123 (talk) 00:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Europe

Why was it ok for the US to have missiles in Europe but not for the USSR to have missiles in Cuba?--69.113.137.1 (talk) 22:15, 7 June 2008 (UTC)