Crises and Cold War: Cuba and Berlin

Chelsea Liu discusses the role of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Crisis in the development of the Cold War.

Khrushchev and Kennedy

The Cold War was the state of high tension and hostility between the two superpower states — the USA and the USSR from the 1940s to early 1990s. Two key crises within this superpower struggle was the Berlin Crisis from 1958 to 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The Berlin Crisis concerned the division of Berlin by the construction of the Berlin Wall which demonstrated, the soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev’s struggle to prevent western influence in the soviet sphere, particularly West Berlin. Whilst, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day direct confrontation between the USA and the USSR initiated by the discovery of soviet nuclear weapons on Cuba which pushed the globe closest to the threat of a nuclear holocaust. Concerning the development of the Cold War, there are both similarities and differences to be drawn from these two crises evaluated through the causes, actions and policies taken of the crises and the significance to the Cold War.

Firstly, the causes of the Berlin Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis can be compared in relation to the development of the Cold War. Whilst, as President Kennedy(JFK) once said that “West Berlin was the capitalist island amongst the sea of communism”, Cuba can arguably be the socialist-communist island in the capitalist sea. This suggested an ideological threat to both sides due to the increased spread of the enemy’s ideology geographically and a universal military threat since both “islands” had the potential of occupying nuclear missiles. Both superpowers were also endangered to a loss of global support. The USSR — when young intellectuals of East Berlin “brain drained” East Germany(GDR) by escaping to West Germany(FRG) and the USA — when Fidel Castro won the hearts of most Cubans when proceeding in a revolution against the USA. This shows that minorities were capable of taking hold of some power that was enough to cause disorders and which had an effect on weakening the sphere of influence of the superpowers.

To point out a difference, President Kennedy’s hard-liner policies and strengths had increased, which provoked Khrushchev to take action in both crises, but under opposite reasons. For example, Khrushchev took action in Berlin after JFK’s humiliation of the Bay of Pigs disaster. His motive was that he could strengthen communist foundation when the USA was under the weak and incapable control of the inexperienced JFK. However, he acted upon the Cuban Missile Crisis passively and oppressively due to the fact that communism was at danger. He was forced to act upon JFK’s hard-liner containment policy as, if he didn’t, the propaganda message of globalising communism would fail and weaken its international influence. Though, it can also be argued that it was more an opportunity to apply pressure to the capitalist USA.  Another difference in the USSR’s motive for action in the Cuban Missile Crisis in contrast to the Berlin Crisis was that in the early 1960’s, although the USSR had sent the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into orbit in 1957 there was the existence of a missile gap between the USA and the economically weaker USSR. Therefore, the attempt of putting missiles on Cuba was an attempt to disguise this military flaw and promote the missile gap myth. However, the USA, who was leading the nuclear weaponry industry did not have an implicit reason for action as specific as that of the USSR’s. Khrushchev’s reasoning of putting missiles on Cuba is also progressive to the Berlin Crisis. He wished to force US influence out of Berlin and to prevent the establishment of an espionage base. On a wider scale, he also intended to protect and expand communism by aiding Cuba, who was geographically close to the USA and would benefit if war did break out. He could use this crisis as a bargaining chip for the USA to remove its missiles from Turkey which were a geographical threat to the soviet mainland.

Overall, the causes of the two crises raised tension and increased the competition between the superpowers for gradual ideological dominance in the Cold War.

Secondly, the actions and policies of the key individuals in the two crises during the Cold War can also be discussed. Throughout both crises, the leader in the USSR was Khrushchev, whilst in the USA JFK was inaugurated president after Eisenhower in 1961. This suggested that as the two leaders started to learn about the personalities and weaknesses of the other and testing them, they would make appropriate adjustments to their policies which would lead to a change in approach and interaction between the two leaders in the long run. On one hand, JFK managed a successful fight against the USSR during the Berlin Crisis which was operated through having a flexible policy and response. This included financial aid to the European countries opposing Communism, an increase in troops and covert operations, keeping US citizens informed in order to maintain trust and enlightening the world with propaganda through the World Press. These actions depict JFK’s diverse response to Khrushchev’s threat, not only economically and military, but also with the use of diplomatic and covert tools as well as the International media. Whereas in the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK maintained a much more closed and safe approach. To avoid military confrontation, he and the ExComm, which is made up of his cabinet of well experienced military and political men, used the word ‘quarantine’ instead of a ‘blockade’ of soviet ships to Cuba. This implies that the USA was being more cautious of its attitude towards the USSR when in close proximity of a soviet nuclear threat. Furthermore, his oppression from the USSR is shown by his defeat in the ExComm ‘quarantine’ project and the cuban trade embargo and also the unsuccessful military attempt of revolution at the Bay of Pigs by the CIA trained Cuban exiles. This depicts JFK’s weaknesses and the danger established by the immediate nuclear threat next door to the USA.

Khrushchev, also changed his stance of power between the two crises. Restricted by JFK’s speech of containment ‘by any means’, he bowed down to the GDR leader Ulbricht to build the Berlin wall. This not only emphasised the increasing power of Ulbricht inside East Germany, but it also forecasted Khrushchev’s stepping down as the leader of the USSR later on; whereas in Cuba, Khrushchev demonstrated communist strength by buying Cuba’s surplus sugar and signing a trade deal with them to economically support them in face of US pressure. The USA became increasingly anticipated by its neighbouring country turning communist. It demonstrated the USSR’s economic catching up with the US economy and contributed to the increase of a potential hot war as the USA despite the acknowledgement of the missile gap still competed fiercely against the USSR to the brink.

During the development of the Cold War, Berlin and Cuba both received significantly different policies and attitudes from the same leaders, this suggested that the nature of the Cold War had changed dramatically.

 Finally, there are similarities and differences on the impact each crisis had on the Cold War. The global profile of JFK and Khrushchev had been updated due to these two crises. Despite the embarrassment of the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy established his hardliner attitude to the World Press media whilst Khrushchev, had exposed the roots of his downfall. Furthermore, both Cuba and Berlin were recognised as the ‘isolated island’ on the other side of the ‘iron curtain’. Like Korea in 1950 and Hungary in 1956, they became pawns in the superpowers’ struggle for ideological world dominance. However, not all were content to become pawns. Castro, for example, was determined to not become over reliant on Moscow. This signified the rise of new key figures and increasing competition and tension. Another was Ulbricht in the GDR who managed to strike down collectivisation policies and circumvent from Khrushchev’s control. But he, unlike Castro, still lived under the roof of Moscow.

In relation to the communist spread, differences occurred. In Berlin, the USSR had failed to spread propaganda. It even showed a retreat in communism exhibited by the brain-drain to the West; whilst the successful protection of Cuba prevented the termination of a seed of communism in capitalist soil. It raised hopes of it germinating through the fluctuation of Latin American countries disgusted by USA’s imperialist-like actions towards Cuba. The weakness of Khrushchev gave rise to a powerful and potential People’s Republic of China(PRC) led by Mao ZeDong, who had been constantly attentive of worldwide issues and crises. The final difference was diplomacy. The Berlin Crisis showed a physical division of the East Berliners from West Berliners. As a whole, it stiffened east and west relationships especially after the U2 spy plane incident when diplomacy was referred to as ‘dead’. However, the Cuban Missile Crisis forced both sides to recognise the traumatic consequences if a war were to break out with the use of nuclear weapons. To avoid this, diplomatic actions took place such as the establishment of a direct hotline between the two leaders.

The Berlin Crisis and Cuban Missile Crisis had a profound impact on the Cold War and it was the differences of the two that explained the sudden travel to the brink of a nuclear hot war.

In conclusion, I believe that although there were similarities between the two crises, it was more the differences, specifically regarding to actions during the cuban missile crisis, that created the multiple pathways the Cold War could go down by. The two most significant would be the recognition of Mao and the sudden realisation for the need of diplomacy. Mao was important as he was a new communist threat to capitalism and had the power to cause a hot war, this point is evident by PRC’s involvement in the Korean War in the early 1950s. The latter was a turning point in the Cold War history as it had evoked both countries about the greater common threat and prevented an unsurvivable holocaust for the global community.