Krushchev offers alternate proposal 1962

According to my understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis, on October 27 Kennedy offered a pledge of no Cuban invasion, and remove the Turkey missiles in six months. Krushchev accepted. But suppose he said "Remove your Turkey missiles simultaneously with our removal of the Cuban missiles." Would this have changed anything (except when the Turkey missiles were removed, of course)?

Probably not. There'd wind up being a complex bit-by-bit removal of each, I think, which could lead to greater cooperation in the long run, but it also could lead to more bitterness on both sides. I don't see that being a warmaking issue, so any ATL would have to have subtle differences.

Removing turkeys missiles later was a major face-saver for the us administration at the time. When they were removed, 6 months later, they even denied it was part of a "deal".

So i think it would have been too politically damaging to act on this suggestion.

Id say that in the strictest sense, the cuban crisis was a minor soviet victory, and the US media certainly didnt portray it as such. This deal would have made this more obvious.

The US only managed to prevent permanant deployment of soviet missiles in Cuba, which aint too shabby, but at the cost of respecting Castro's hold on Cuba and withdrawing from the best spot to strike at Russia.

Valamyr said:

Removing turkeys missiles later was a major face-saver for the us administration at the time. When they were removed, 6 months later, they even denied it was part of a "deal".

So i think it would have been too politically damaging to act on this suggestion.

Id say that in the strictest sense, the cuban crisis was a minor soviet victory, and the US media certainly didnt portray it as such. This deal would have made this more obvious.

The US only managed to prevent permanant deployment of soviet missiles in Cuba, which aint too shabby, but at the cost of respecting Castro's hold on Cuba and withdrawing from the best spot to strike at Russia.

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Probably true. In the long run it was a Soviet victory of sorts (not for Krushchev, though). As one who spent school days practicing the old duck and cover in 1962, I'd have to say that in retrospect we were just so glad to be alive that nobody (at least among the general public) even knew about the Turkey deal. The Missile Crisis was presented by the media as a clear cut victory for the US and JFK, something that JFK (and the USA) needed desperately so soon after the Bay of Pigs fisaco. In fact, even several years later when Republicans started pointing out that Kennedy's victory was really more of a trade off, I considered those relevations well nigh treasonous lies.

Bad news guys. There never was any such deal. The SOVIETS invented the tale to cover their retreat, although the decision to emphasize ICBMs over short-range missles in Cuba was certainly to their advantage in the long-run.

The decision to remove the short-range(less than 170 miles) missles was taken under Eisenhower, not JFK, and only 15 of the 72 remained when the crisis erupted. Given the poor range and the fact that these missles could not be protected or hardened in any way, enabling a single rogue Soviet plane to take out 72 of our nukes just seemed a bad risk. In fact, the entire class of missles was being removed, Turkey last of the nations to host them, for this reason. I believe it was 1959 that a war game suggested that a dozen bombers flying CONVENTIONAL strikes could destroy most of them, so the decision was made.

The Soviets did not trade 44 missles threatening most of the southeast US, another 40 threatening everything important east of the Mississippi, AND any more to come, all for 15 puny ranged missles already being retired.