http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-445715,00.html
THE United States and the Soviet Union came much closer to nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis than was previously known, according to newly declassified documents and evidence from key protagonists. A hair-raising account yesterday by a former Russian naval officer described how, on October 27, 1962, an American destroyer dropped depth charges on a Soviet submarine without realising that it was carrying a nuclear weapon. It was the day that the crisis appeared to be spinning out of control, according to declassified documents that have been pored over by an extraordinary array of former Cold War warriors at a conference in Havana marking the 40th anniversary of the period's most dangerous episode. They include President Castro, the Cuban leader, and Robert McNamara, John F. Kennedy's Defence Secretary. In the middle of the rapidly escalating tensions, the USS Beale was dropping depth charges on the submarine, B59, off the coast of Cuba. Hours earlier an American U2 spy plane had been shot down and the US military Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended to President Kennedy a Cuban airstrike and invasion. The US military "did not have a clue that the submarine had a nuclear weapon on board," Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, said. Vadim Orlov, the submarine's signals intelligence officer, told the conference in a written account how close his colleagues had come to ordering the launch of a torpedo tipped with a nuclear warhead. "They (the depth charges) exploded right next to the hull," Mr Orlov said. The crew believed that war had begun and were on the verge of launching the submarine's nuclear weapon. The submarine had been authorised to fire its nuclear torpedo with the approval of three officers on board. Two wanted to launch it, but a third, according to Mr Orlov, said no. "A guy named Arkhipov saved the world," Mr Blanton said. Mr McNamara told the conference that a nuclear attack on an American ship could easily have escalated into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the two superpowers. The crisis began on the morning of October 15, 1962, when an American spy plane spotted Soviet missiles that had been secretly deployed in Cuba. It led to 13 days of white hot tension between President Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, and by October 27 war was looking increasingly likely. On that day new surveillance photographs showed that the missile sites had become fully operational, said Dino Brugioni, the former CIA analyst who interpreted the first U2 spy plane photographs that showed missiles in Cuba. Another U2 strayed into Soviet airspace and Soviet MiG fighter jets scrambled to intercept it. Mr Brugioni said that on October 27 his superior at the CIA returned from briefing President Kennedy on the new spy plane photographs. "How did it go?," Mr Brugioni said he asked. "Not good at all," came the reply. "The President is very concerned." Mr Brugioni told the conference: "October 27 is a day I'll never forget. The planet could have been destroyed." The following day the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw the missiles and order ships heading for Cuba back to Russia, in return for America promising not to invade Cuba. The conference is also being attended by Arthur Schlesinger, one of Kennedy' s closest aides, and William Ecker, the pilot whose photographs triggered the crisis. Theodore Sorenson, President Kennedy's speechwriter, said that it sent "a good message" to a world on the verge of war. "It's not just a conference of remembrance - it's a conference of reconciliation." xponent Whew Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
