11. JFK’s Refusal to Let His Military Advisers Jam Him Into an Invasion of Cuba Might Have Saved the World
Tactical nukes were dispersed throughout Cuba to various Soviet units, under the physical control of officers as low down the chain of command as captains. Soviet forces had trained to use those weapons as part of their defensive plan, and in the heat of battle weapons custodians would have been under intense pressure as they were subjected to overwhelming US aerial strikes, naval bombardment, and ground attacks. The Red Army in 1962, with victory in WWII only 17 years in its past, did not lack military pride or an ethos of defiance unto death.
It is thus not difficult to envision a desperate local commander, perhaps cut off from communications with higher authority, using the tactical nukes at hand to save his command, or at least ensure that its demise did not come cheap. If the Soviets had used nukes in Cuba, US plans called for a massive nuclear response. Things could easily have escalated from there to turn the Cold War hot with a full-blown nuclear exchange that would have devastated both countries and Europe, irradiated the Northern Hemisphere, and set humanity back centuries. Luckily, President Kennedy resisted the pressure from his generals and admirals, relied on diplomacy, back channels, and blockade, and successfully diffused the crisis without triggering WWIII.
