Posted on 09/23/2009 8:05:43 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
In the early 1980s, according to newly released documents, Fidel Castro was suggesting a Soviet nuclear strike against the United States, until Moscow dissuaded him by patiently explaining how the radioactive cloud resulting from such a strike would also devastate Cuba.
The cold war was then in one of its chilliest phases. President Ronald Reagan had begun a trillion-dollar arms buildup, called the Soviet Union an evil empire and ordered scores of atomic detonations under the Nevada desert as a means of developing new arms. Some Reagan aides talked of fighting and winning a nuclear war.
Dozens of books warned that Reagans policies threatened to end most life on earth. In June 1982, a million protesters gathered in Central Park.
Barack Obama, then an undergraduate at Columbia University, worried about the nuclear threat and later wrote as a student and a journalist about ways to avoid global annihilation.
The future president didnt know half the danger.
The National Security Archive, a private research group at George Washington University, recently made public documents that reveal the nuclear threat in new detail. The two-volume study, Soviet Intentions 1965-1985, was prepared in 1995 by a Pentagon contractor and based on extensive interviewing of former top Soviet military officials.
It took the security archive two years to get the Pentagon to release the study. Censors excised a few sections on nuclear tests and weapon effects, and the archive recently posted the redacted study on its Web site.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
In the book “One Hell Of a Gamble”, Castro was planning to detonate a nuclear weapon as American soldiers landed on the beaches.
The media has been abuzz today at the prospect of Russian nuclear bombers being stationed in Cuba if the US goes ahead with plans for missile defense bases in Eastern Europe.
The story has riled the US enough that a US general has been wheeled out to tell the worlds press that any Russian attempt to build another nuclear base in Cuba would cross US red line.
The story broke earlier this week, when Russian newspaper Izvestia quoted an un-named source from within the Russian military. He told the Russian daily:
While they are deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic bombers will already be landing in Cuba.
The quote hasnt been independently confirmed, but the Russian Defense Ministry added fuel to the fire when they refused to comment on the story.
The prospect of Russian nuclear forces being stationed in Cuba - which is, after all, only 90 miles from the US coast - would bring back some rather unpleasant memories for the US of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where the Soviet Union under Nikita Kruschev launched an audacious and foolhardy bid to station nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island.
http://www.siberianlight.net/2008/07/23/russian-nuclear-bombers-cuba/
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Russia to help Cuba modernize weaponry, train military
September 18, 2009
HAVANA, September 18 (RIA Novosti) - Modernization of the Soviet-made military equipment and training of Cuban military personnel will be the focus of Russian-Cuban military cooperation in the near future, the chief of the Russian General Staff said on Friday. Gen. Nikolai Makarov arrived on a working visit to Cuba on Monday, met with Cuban President Raul Castro and the country's military leadership, and visited a number of military installations.
"During the Soviet era we delivered a large number of military equipment to Cuba, and after all these years most of this weaponry has become obsolete and needs repairs," Makarov said.
"We inspected the condition of this equipment, and outlined the measures to be taken to maintain the defense capability of this country...I think a lot of work needs to be done in this respect, and I hope we will be able to accomplish this task," the general said.
Makarov said the Cuban request for assistance with training of military personnel will also be fully satisfied.
Although the Cuban leadership has repeatedly said it has no intention of resuming military cooperation with Russia after the surprise closure of the Russian electronic listening post in Lourdes in 2001, bilateral military ties seem to have been improving following the visit of Russian Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to Cuba in July last year.
A group of Russian warships, led by the Admiral Chabanenko destroyer visited Cuba in December last year during a Caribbean tour.
http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20090918/156170428.html
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"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...
"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html
Is it wrong to hope Fidel gets run over by a truck tomorrow?
Nikita Khrushchev and most of the Soviet military thought Castro was nuts according to Khrushchev son Sergei. I have met Sergi Khrushchev on one occasion.
The best defense is a good offense. Thank God for Reagan and Weinberger.
If that's the case why did Khrushchev decide to arm him with nuclear-capable missiles?
Only if at least one of his special friends is not with him.
And the UN just gave this totalitarian idiot an award.
Castro wanted to nuke the U.S. and of course the Times makes it look like it was Reagan's fault.
This entire study seems to be kinda biased.. Anti-Reagan and pro-Soviet frankly. A lot of it contradicts recent reveltions on their intentions as well, especially stuff about them wanting to nuke europe.
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