Alan Mcpherson on Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's

James G. Blight, Philip Brenner. Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis. Lanham and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002. xxvii + 324 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-7425-2288-6. Reviewed by Alan McPherson Published on H-Diplo (January, 2003) "Empathy" for Cuba's Missile Crisis explained.[2] Castro himself has been making that Every few months, it seems, new evidence or case since a similar 1992 conference, not only by revelations about the Cuban Missile Crisis come to releasing new evidence but also by personally light to underscore the seriousness of that mo‐ taking part in the discussions. ment in human history. Most recently, the forti‐ Why Castro has been so willing to oversee eth-anniversary conference in Havana in October this rewriting of history is largely explained in 2002 brought Cuban leader Fidel Castro together James Blight and Philip Brenner's short but with scholars as well as surviving Kennedy and uniquely valuable book, Sad and Luminous Days: Khrushchev advisers to add still more insight into Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the how close the world came to annihilation. There, Missile Crisis. Their description of Castro's bitter‐ the assembled learned, for instance, that two offi‐ ness, at what he perceived to be Nikita cers of a Soviet submarine, out of touch with Mos‐ Khrushchev's betrayal, has come out now with the cow and besieged by U.S. depth charges, had actu‐ end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the So‐ ally begun the process of launching a nuclear at‐ viet Union. Apparently, Castro no longer needs to tack before the cooler head of a third Soviet offi‐ conceal the fact that Cuban and Soviet leaders cer halted the launching. One man vetoed two grew estranged after the feeling of defeat that re‐ others and thus stopped a thermonuclear war; it sulted from the agreement to dismantle Cuba's really did come that close.[1] missiles in 1962 settled on Moscow and Havana. What is coming to light, however, are not Cuba has long been, as Blight and Brenner only the eerie "what ifs." A more complex aspect write, the "big 'loser' in October 1962" (p. xv). In of the crisis that is becoming increasingly evident scholarship since 1962, Cuba has largely fgured is that the "role of Cuba deserves a certain as a marginal third party. It is portrayed as a neu‐ amount of emphasis," as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., tral exotic backdrop in the U.S.-Soviet confronta‐ who advised Kennedy during the crisis, recently tion; or, in U.S. eyes, as a reckless host for the mis‐ H-Net Reviews siles; or still, in Soviet eyes, as an annoying junior fearing it would become even more of a U.S. tar‐ partner. Recently, historians such as Aleksandr get for aggression. Castro then appeared to see no Fursenko and Timothy Naftali in One Hell of a reason to sneak the missiles in, as if Cuba had not Gamble, influenced by new documents from the the sovereign right to harbor any weapons it former Soviet Union, have begun the process of wanted. He also cleared up the rumor, based on internationalizing the perspectives on the crisis, his October 26, 1962 letter to Khrushchev, that he moving beyond the limited U.S. view offered by had called for a Soviet preemptive nuclear attack. the declassification of its documents.[4] Castro quoted from his own letter to the Soviet Sad and Luminous Days is a timely effort to leader, which merely called for nuclear retalia‐ further internationalize the history of the Missile tion in case of a U.S. attack, conventional or nucle‐ Crisis by adding to what we know of the Cuban ar. perspective. Blight and Brenner have been work‐ Most galling to Castro, however, was clearly ing towards this moment for over a decade. They the settlement of the crisis on 28 October, when have already written widely about the crisis and the Soviets agreed to pull their missiles out of have interviewed several Cubans who participat‐ Cuba and to have the removal inspected interna‐ ed in it. tionally. In exchange the United States promised They have also been at the forefront, along not to invade Cuba and secretly added that it with the National Security Archive, of bringing to would remove missiles of its own from Turkey. light new documents from all three participating Castro was furious that he was not consulted--or countries. Blight and Brenner's coup, and the cen‐ even informed--about the removal of the missiles. terpiece of this book, is their success in convinc‐ He hated the idea of American eyes peering over ing Cuba to release Castro's previously secret Cuban sites and did not believe Khrushchev's ex‐ speech (lasting close to a dozen hours) given in planation that there had been no time for such a January 1968 to the Cuban Communist Party's consultation. Adding to Castro's humiliation, in Central Committee. Abandoned by the Soviet November 1962, Khrushchev bowed to U.S. pres‐ Union in the 1990s, Cubans, eager to redeem their sure, again without consulting Castro, to remove active role in the crisis, not only released the orig‐ IL-28 bombers from Cuba while U-2 overflights inal Spanish version of the speech but provided a continued. When Moscow then pulled out not competent English translation, reproduced faith‐ only its missiles and planes but the great bulk of fully and fully by Blight and Brenner as chapter 2. its forces, Castro felt unprotected and betrayed. The authors describe the speech as "the longest There may not be any new strategically-sensi‐ and most detailed account of the crisis the Cuban tive information in the speech, but the emotions leader ha[s] ever offered" and maybe "the best re‐ expressed matter greatly to Blight and Brenner. flection of his perceptions at the time of the 1962 The modest theoretical claim of the authors is that crisis" (p. xvii). The immediate purpose of the they can best analyze Cuba's dealings with both meeting that occasioned the speech was to accuse superpowers through what they call "realistic em‐ Anibal Escalante and other pro-Soviet Cubans of pathy, which interprets a conflict by putting one‐ treason against the Revolution. The bulk of the self in the shoes of each side" (pp. xxvi-xxvii). The speech, however, has Castro recalling the tearing importance of the 1968 speech, therefore, is not so asunder of Cuban-Soviet relations during the Mis‐ much in any evidentiary "smoking guns" but in sile Crisis. demonstrating how the Missile Crisis was a psy‐ In the speech, Castro detailed how Cuba had chological trauma for Cubans. originally accepted the missiles only reluctantly, 2 H-Net Reviews This trauma was dual, as the title of the book U.S. officials, the Soviets also focused on the con‐ indicates. The expression "sad and luminous frontation between the superpowers and left days" comes from Ernesto Ché Guevara's 1965 Cuban agency largely out of it. "Farewell Letter" to Castro. In that letter, Guevara The Cuban perspective flls out not only the expressed two seemingly contradictory emotions: remainder of chapter 1 but of the book itself. the sadness of being out of control and on the Cubans took a month to qualify the crisis, the au‐ brink, but also the luminousness that came from thors argue, because the island had been living finally confronting the United States with its own through several attacks from exiles in the past mortality. As one Cuban official explained, in Oc‐ years, not to mention economic warfare from the tober 1962 Cubans flled nightclubs and danced U.S. government, and expected further attacks af‐ for either, or perhaps both, of these reasons, i.e., ter October 1962. The "October Crisis," therefore, nihilism and joy (p. 24). This duality certainly ex‐ was merely the most important clash in a long se‐ isted at many levels. For instance, at the policy ries of traumas for Cubans. level Cubans frst feared the arrival of the missiles The crisis had consequences on Cuba's rela‐ would provoke a U.S. invasion, but at the end of tions with the Soviet Union and the rest of the the crisis, they feared their dismantling would world at least until 1968. Largely against the will have the same effect. It was also felt in the trench‐ of Moscow, for instance, Cuba supported insur‐ es. Castro explained to First Deputy Premier Anas‐ gencies in Latin America and Africa in order to tas Mikoyan that "Cuban soldiers were crying in aggravate U.S. fears of widespread revolutionary the trenches because they weren't allowed to threat and, thus, take pressure off Cuba. The au‐ shoot at the [U.S.] planes" but also that "Cubans do thors argue that Castro acted "both for reasons of not want war" (p. 79). state security and reasons of moral principle," em‐ The intent to achieve "empathy" is admirable, phasizing the need to assert Cuban independence and best realized in chapter 1, which compares from Soviet foreign policy after 1962 (p. 98). By the same event with different names in three cap‐ 1967, wanting to turn the screw on a Fidel Castro itals: Washington's "Missile Crisis," Moscow's "Car‐ who was increasingly galvanizing Latin American ibbean Crisis," and Havana's "October Crisis." U.S. revolutionaries, through the martyrdom of the policymakers, typically viewing the event through now-dead Guevara, the Soviets refused to raise the lens of only "thirteen days," focused on the fuel deliveries to Cuba, which partly explains the tense White House deliberations between the timing of the bitter speech.

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