The understanding, often referred to as the Kennedy-Khrushchev understanding, is a verbal agreement, not a formal treaty. But its essence — that the Russians would not deploy nuclear weapons or systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons in Cuba — has held for 62 years. The Russians have honored their commitment on at least two past occasions, and the United States must insist that they continue to do so.
In October 1962, under intense U.S. military pressure, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the nuclear missiles Moscow had secretly deployed to Cuba. Following Khrushchev’s decision, the United States sought to memorialize the understanding in a formal agreement under auspices of the United Nations. Those negotiations broke down over details, but the Soviets did commit not to deploy “offensive weapons” in Cuba, which they defined as nuclear weapons or delivery systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
This commitment was tested in the early 1970s when Soviet nuclear-powered submarines paid visits to Cuban ports. Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger demanded that the Russians adhere to the 1962 understanding. In response, Moscow insisted that the understanding covered only nuclear weapons or weapons capable of carrying nuclear weapons, not nuclear-powered ships or submarines. Washington accepted that interpretation.
The issue lay dormant until Soviet MiG-23 fighter aircraft were discovered in Cuba in 1978. Because one version of the MiG-23 was designed to carry nuclear weapons, the question arose as to whether that version was deployed in Cuba. I was an attorney at the State Department at the time, and because I held the necessary clearances to see the intelligence, I was asked to write a legal memo determining what the understanding covered and whether it was a binding legal agreement. I assembled a small team of colleagues, and we got to work.
Answering those questions was not an easy task. Because the understanding was only a verbal one, we had to rely on records from the time of the missile crisis. U. Alexis Johnson, the undersecretary of state for political affairs at the time, had kept the best records. We found them in a shopping cart in the basement of the State Department. We also conducted a number of interviews and recovered records from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.
Our research led us to conclude that although the understanding was not a formal written agreement, the Soviets had to that point lived up to their commitment, giving us reasonable confidence that they would continue to do so. Both the United States and the Soviet Union recognized that nuclear weapons were a “red line” of sorts and that crossing it was to be avoided.
We presented this conclusion to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who directed that we send the Russians a diplomatic note demanding that they confirm that the MiGs deployed to Cuba were not equipped to carry nuclear weapons. Our note drew upon language used in the exchanges with the Soviets in 1962 and 1963. To our surprise, Moscow responded quickly, also quoting from those exchanges and assuring us that the MiG-23s were not “offensive weapons” as had been agreed in those earlier discussions.
We were later able to confirm that the MiG-23s deployed indeed were not the version equipped to carry nuclear weapons.
But these days are not those days. Russia under Vladimir Putin is dangerously more aggressive than was the Soviet Union under its ossified leadership. Current Russian nonnuclear weapons are far more capable than the Soviet weapons of the 1960s and ’70s. It’s clear that Putin seeks to expand his influence in the Western Hemisphere and to use Cuba as a base for doing so. His menacing of Ukraine demonstrates that he is prepared to threaten the use of nuclear weapons.
We do not know what the State Department has said to the Kremlin about its increased military activity in this hemisphere, but we must not accept it as the new normal. The starting point must be to reconfirm Russia’s adherence to the 1962 understanding. We should also make clear that, just as in Cuba then, we will not tolerate the deployment anywhere in this hemisphere of Russian nuclear weapons or delivery systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
The Russians will surely resist expanding the scope of the understanding, but we must not let them think they have a free hand to act as they please in our neighborhood. Otherwise,…
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