Chances of nuke use in Cuban Missile Crisis

Percentage chance of nuclear weapon use in CMC?

  • 0%

    Votes: 3 2.8%
  • 1%

    Votes: 2 1.9%
  • 2%

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5%

    Votes: 5 4.6%
  • 10%

    Votes: 10 9.3%
  • 25%

    Votes: 26 24.1%
  • 50%

    Votes: 31 28.7%
  • 75%

    Votes: 19 17.6%
  • 90%

    Votes: 6 5.6%
  • 95%

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • 98%

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 99%

    Votes: 5 4.6%

  • Total voters
    108
No one really knows how lucky we were, I did read something the other day that said the whole situation was perfectly under control and I think that is a dangerous illusion. I guess the things we don't know are
1 How likely it was that a nuke could have been used.
2 The probability that a single nuke (or perhaps with a single response) could have been used without escalation towards a full scale exchange.
3 Especially given how long ago it is now and that (esp for USSR) ICBM's were in their infancy, how effective the weapons would have been.

I'm gonna go for 50/50, its the kind of odds I wouldn't bet anything significant that I value on, and yet there we were. Thank God it didn't happen.
 
Here's a link to the National Security Archive at George Washington University, with declassified U.S. and Soviet documents:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/index.htm


These two are nuclear-weapons related: The first revokes Gen. Issa Pliyev's (CINC-Soviet Forces Cuba) predelegated authority to use the tactical nuclear weapons without consulting Moscow. The second reaffirms that order. A note on the first one: Gen. Igor Statsenko was commander of the two SS-4 missile bases, while Col. Nikolai Belborodov was in charge of custody of the tactical weapons (Luna/FROG rockets, FKR-1/SS-C-2b Salish, and gravity bombs for the Il-28s).

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/621022 Malinovsky's Order to Pliyev.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/621027 Ciphered Telegram No. 20076.pdf
 
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