WI: JFK takes Nixon's advice and invades Cuba in 1961?

With regards to tactical nuclear weapons. Has anyone got a source?

Although there were plenty of hawks in the White House, the moment mushroom clouds go up over Cuba (if they do, how many people would happily nuke their own country?), I can imagine the Politburo quickly informing Kennedy they are not involved. Which also gives them immense prestige, as it is America and Cuba that have caused the problem. Cue huge 'solidarity' aid from the Warsaw Pact - will Kennedy blockade out food and medical supplies?

If this remains a 'limited' engagement with Cuba an irradiated pit at the end, JFK will have just doomed his chances in '64, the event butterflies a hawk like Goldwater. Does it take Hiroshima on the Spanish Main to elect President Rockefeller? :rolleyes:

Whatever happens in America's neck of the woods, detente in some form is likely, anti-nuclear groups just got all they need (British Labour had briefly gone unilateralist around this time, chance they might swing back with popular support) plus Latin American antipathy to the US also got a massive boost.

However if it goes according to plan post-Castro Cuba will be interesting. He was pretty popular in the early days and had implemented some major social reforms. America is going to want her massive slice of the economy back, and given the atmosphere of the time I sadly doubt a centre-left democracy will be brought into place. More likely an Emergency Council run by pro-US officers and politicians across the spectrum.

Does capitalist Havana dent Mafia influence in Las Vegas? Does it prove a major gateway for cocaine in the 1970s and 80s?

I agree the United States will easily keep the lid on Cuba post-1961. Problem is, for the short to mid term they will have to keep the lid on.
 
The US overruns Cuba. The Soviets cut their losses and pursue a quid pro quo elsewhere. The newly instituted Cuban government becomes a corrupt and incompetent joke requiring constant infusions of American troops to maintain itself against increasing public opposition.

This. The Soviets make a lot of noise and fuss but realise that going to war over Cuba isn't worth it. Cuba becomes even more of a banana republic.

EDIT: Fuss not fudge, bloody touch pad phones, I'll be glad to get out of this bloody hospital.
 
I don't think the Soviets would throw their country into the fire for Cuba... sure, it was valuable, but not that valuable. The USSR knows that at this point, they'd come out the worse in a nuclear war, so anything less than a NATO invasion of eastern Europe isn't going to bring one about.

Were the Russian nukes there in 1961? Was it just the long range ones that everyone made such a fuss about in '63? Don't really know...

Yes you see thats what it was they didn't have the missles yet but they had tactical nukes...
 
So no one here foresees the whole nuclear doomsday thing being an issue?

No. The Soviets aren't stupid. In 1961 they had a grand total (including prototypes) of 4 ICBMs. The U.S. had dozens at least, likely hundreds (I can't find any numbers on that particular point. They also had far more bombers and shorter range missiles. Quite simply in a nuclear in 1961 the Soviet Union is annhilated. Most of the damage to NATO is in Europe with a few nukes hitting the U.S. Not pretty, but not doomsday.

As for tactical weapons in Cuba, all the evidence I can find says that there were no weapons until 1962, and if the U.S. invades in '61 the Soviets aren't going to ship any nukes to Cuba and risk escalating to a war they cannot win.
 
I thought the Soviets made ICBMs first?:confused:

They might have, but the U.S. massively overestimated the number of working missiles the Soviets had and rushed to overcome the (imaginary) missile gap. It wasn't until the late '60s and '70s that the USSR even started to catch up with the U.S.'s missile capabilities. In 1976 for instance the U.S. still had missile dominance at a rate of something like 6 to 1.
 
That said, to say that the US had anything like hundreds of ICBMs operational in 1961 is wildly optimistic in its own right. The first Titans (amounting to about a hundred missiles by the END of the year, about 60 of which were on standby at any time) were just coming online that summer, and were the first realistically usable American missiles. Titans aside there were only the Atlas Ds at this point, which were notoriously unreliable, took something on the order of 15 minutes to raise, fuel and fire (admittedly not much of a problem when the Soviets don't really have missiles either) and with fewer than twenty missiles operational by summer 61. Enough of a force to be somewhat threatening, but not yet a game changer.
 
I'm interested in long-term ramifications- U.S. becomes emboldened, Soviets respond in kind by being more brutal towards any disrespect from their satellite states (or cases like Afghanistan), and in general both powers are more willing to get down into the dirty, causing the Cold War to be both hot in terms of the two blocs being willing to commit conventional military forces, but maybe colder as well because this shows that nuclear weapons don't deter conventional military action?
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Where are people getting the idea that there were nukes in Cuber in '61 :confused:

The USA invades and looks like an imperialist thug with their own tropical Hungary, only they get to enjoy a simmering guerrilla war with guajiros burning UF plantations, sniping US troops, blowing up police stations, looting hotels/casinos, taking foreign hostages, and bombing U.S. cities (as some Cuban groups did OTL).

The Beard gets cut, Che and Raúl may survive to fight another day, but Cubans are going to LOATHE yanqui imperialistas occupying la isla.
 
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