******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
What is chiefly omitted from this mythological version of October 1962 is what we sometimes call the *Cuban*, Cuban missile crisis: the physical and psychological reality faced during the crisis by everyone *in Cuba*, including the more than 43,000 Russians who were, with Cuban collaboration, preparing for war with the U.S. In Cuba, the crisis was not a chess match or any other kind of game, nor was it a test of wills between the superpowers. In Cuba, the crisis was experienced as preparation for the last battle, for Armageddon, an event that Cuban leaders and their constituents had been anticipating for a year and a half, ever since they had foiled the CIA-backed invasion of Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs, on Cuba’s southern coast, in April 1961. This meant preparing to fight to the death. It meant carrying the fight to the Americans in every way possible, even though Cuba had no chance of surviving an all-out war with the U.S. Above all, it meant adhering to a code of conduct with deep roots in Cuban history (a history grasped neither by Washington nor Moscow): no surrender; no compromise; no negotiations. It meant dying honorably. It meant taking as many of the enemy down with you as possible. Fidel - *We anticipate our total destruction. We have been waiting for this moment ever since the failed, CIA-backed invasion of Cuba by 1,300 Cuban exiles in April 1961. There is nothing we can do to stop the Americans from destroying Cuba, other than surrender, which is unthinkable. We are prepared to disappear beneath the Caribbean Sea. But Comrade Nikita, do not worry about us. We 7.5 million Cubans are doomed only in the physical sense. We are ready to die honorably for Cuba, martyrs in the fight against imperialism. * *At the first sign that the invasion of our island has begun, I urge you to launch an all-out nuclear attack on the United States. Never again will the world have to tolerate aggression by the world’s biggest bully. Cuba will be honored to have provided the occasion for the total destruction of the U.S. * https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/news/cuba/2018-01-11/dark-beyond-darkness-cuban-missile-crisis-book _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
