2024-06-18 – At sea on our way to Malaga, Spain – Day 047

Tuesday June 18, 2024 – At sea on route to Malaga, Spain

A gorgeous sunny day at sea. We went to the lecture by Philip St. Lawrence (Email – greatesthour@outlook.com) on The Cuban Missile Crisis – 13 days that could have resulted in the total nuclear destruction of the world. The day by day summary of those fateful days from October 16th, 1962 to October 29th, 1962 was riveting. The key players were the US, Cuban and Soviet Union leaders. On the US side, Predident John Kennedy, aged 45, elected 2 years earlier, was calm and cool under pressure, but had recently suffered because of the Bay of Pigs incident. On the Soviet Union side was Nikita Khrushchev, at 68, having been the de facto ruler from 1953 (until 1964), was moody and unpredictable, paranoid and a fervent defender of communism. The final key player was Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator, who had sided and received a lot of help from the Soviet Union, and thus beholden to them, was a revolutionary aged 36, who ran Cuba from 1959 to 2008, was explosive, and often called the “Prima Donna of Prima Donnas”. The USSR had persuaded Cuba to allow the building of missile sites and arm them with nuclear weapons pointed at and within 10 minutes flight to Washington DC and New York. The USA could not allow this to happen. Definite proof, vis surveillance photographs and the pressure from the military to act and take them out in the first instance was not acted upon by Kennedy. He preferred a diplomatic solution. General Curtis Le May and the joint chiefs of staff, including his brother Bobby, the Attorney General and 6 years his junior, all pressured Kennedy to act. Each day the pressure to act decisively increased. He finally on Day 6 (October 21) Kennedy decided to create a naval blockade and announced it one day later. The US Navy (Kennedy was a naval officer during the war, I think I remember he commanded PT109) so understood what was to happen. At one point they boarded one of the USSR vessels (the Marucla) and found no nuclear misiles. Fortunately that went without incident, but Nikita Khrushchev realized he meant buisness. By the 27th, a US plane had been shot down over Cuba, submarines were stopped and nuclear weapons equivalent to the explosive power of 3,000 Hiroshima bombs were in the air and at sea ready to strike by the USA. A letter in response to the Soviets two letters was given by Bobby to the Soviet Ambassador to Washington that air strikes would soon start, the Generals were applying excessive pressure to strike and that Kennedy might consider the missiles aimed at the USSR in Turkey. The Soviet leader, realized that he had to act and agreed to close up the bases in Cuba and not place nuclear weapons there. Crisis averted. Kennedy’s thoughts at the end of this, were – “It is insane that two men sitting on the opposite side of the world, should be able to bring an end to civilization…. We should bear in mind what Hart said”. Sir Basil Liddell Hart in a 1960 book stated – “Keep Strong ….. Keep Cool …. Never Corner an Opponent …. And always assist him to save face …… Put yourself in his shoes … See things through his eyes and avoid self righteousness like the devil, nothing is so self blinding”.

The next talk was my Midge Ure which we had heard before, but still interesting.

We then headed to Sir Samuels Steak House as we still had not used all our allotted coupons. We then played some shuffleboard and started packing for the transfer to the Queen Mary II next week. The evening show was the sensational Jennifer Tierney, which again was spectacular.