He who holds the high ground, wins. Unless you’re over sixty-five you probably don’t remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and Sino-Indian War first-hand. I do. I remember it as if it was yesterday. We all knew from the newspapers, radio, and television that something bad was happening involving Cuba, Russia, and the United States. For kids my age it was exciting. For our folks, who had gone through WWII and Korea it was scary, very scary. My dad loaded my mom and me into the family Buick and we drove over to Presidio Park, which had a view that covered Pacific Highway, the main north-south road from San Diego to Los Angeles, the huge air plant at Lindbergh Field where the Air Force was building F-102 fighter planes, the San Diego airport, and part of San Diego Bay. Things looked pretty normal as we drove down onto Pacific Highway. The northbound lanes were practically empty, but the southbound lanes were bumper to bumper with Marine Corps vehicles of all kinds filled with Marines. They weren’t moving fast, maybe 35 mph., and they had their lights on. Usually if we were in the car behind one of the trucks filled with Marines they would wave at me and I’d wave back at them. It was all very friendly. Not that day. The Marines sat there, looking straight ahead, and very serious. We followed them past the downtown area to the part of the bay where the Navy had its amphibious transports and other ships berthed. The Marines were loading up to ship out. I noticed that there were no aircraft carriers over at North Island either. Usually there were at least two, sometimes three, and one Christmas, in 1956 I think it was, there were four of them. But on that day there were none. We turned around and headed back up Pacific Highway toward the Airport. Lindbergh Field sits right on San Diego bay. You have to fly over downtown San Diego to land there on its 8,800 foot runway. At the best of times it was always a bit scary to watch planes come and go. As we approached from the south I looked over to the holding area where planes waiting to take off parked until cleared to go. I saw something I had never seen before; jeeps with Marines were parked along the fence surrounding the runway. And on the other side of the fence I could see three B-47 bombers pulled up in a row on the parking apron. The B-47s were mid-sized jet bombers, not nearly as big as the B-52s that were coming into use to replace them, but they looked pretty big to me. I noticed two things: first, each plane had its own Marine guards complete with guard dogs, and secondly, the bomb bay doors on each plane were closed; something you didn’t usually see when a bomber was sitting on the ground at a civilian airport. Come to think of it, I’d never three of them at one time at a civilian airport. It was very quiet in the car as we drove home. A few days later the Crisis ended and things got back to normal, but I never forgot the sight of those bombers sitting, waiting to go. In the years following the Crisis I had a chance to hear some of the key participants in the US leadership tell their stories. Gen. Curtis LeMay, who led the bombers and missiles of the Strategic Air Command was just as bombastic about the Cuban Crisis as he was about WWII, Korea, or Vietnam. Admiral Robert L. Dennison was commander of US Naval forces in the Atlantic during the Crisis. He was very calm and very professional, just the opposite of LeMay. Since those events fifty years ago hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been written about the what, who, why, when, where, and how of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This year there are even more books than usual being published, and the John F. Kennedy Library at Harvard is sponsoring a special exhibit on the event. It seems that every new book reveals some previously unknown secret about what went on. In “The Cuban Missile Crisis” Wikipedia entry. Khrushchev’s Memoirs and Sergo Mikoyan’s account of his father’s role in the event are worth reading. For gamers, Cuban Missile Crisis — 1962 was published in 2005, designed by Brandon Gajda In summary: the Soviets withdrew their nuclear missiles from Cuba, the US withdrew its nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy (although they kept nuclear bombs in both countries for aircraft), the Soviet Union and USA agreed that the US would never invade Cuba, the two Superpowers created a nuclear hotline, Fidel Castro’s position was strengthened, within a year Nikita Khrushchev was ousted from power, and John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The primary actors on one side were: The USA, Turkey, Italy, with support from NATO countries; and on the other the USSR, Cuba, and the Warsaw Pact countries. The lesson I think anyone should take away from this Crisis is simple: The New York Times on the 13th of October this year published an unsigned opinion piece entitled, “You have heard about the fog of war. What about the fog of not war?” The point is that even with good leadership on both sides, poor intelligence and rouges can screw up the decision-making and action-taking processes with horrific results. One source said that if an invasion had happened 18,000 men would have died in the first 30 minutes, and several hundred thousand within a few hours, and perhaps millions of people on the first day. We were lucky we lost one pilot killed. It’s hard to think of two simultaneous “wars” as different as the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the Sino-Indian Border War of October 1962. Two wars, involving two different military alliances, on two different continents, for two very different reasons, breaking out on the same day? Was there a connection between the two events? Yes, we know now that there was. At the time only a few leaders, particularly Mao Zedong and Chou En-lai knew what was going to happen. From sea level to below sea level and up to 70,000 feet in the air, the ocean and air around Cuba was filled with the latest military equipment; none of which had been used in combat. In the Himalayas, at 14,000 feet and above Indian soldiers had to carry 77 pounds of gear into combat. Oxygen deficiency and other altitude-related illnesses probably cost more lives than combat. Still Mao, who knew what the Russians were doing in Cuba, went ahead with his plans to teach the Indians a lesson. He assumed, correctly, that the Americans would be too involved in Cuba to worry about India. It’s much harder to find information about the Sino-Indian War of 1962 (there were other border skirmishes but this was the one true war between them). An Amazon.com search reveals a long list of books available on the subject, mostly by Indian authors trying to explain what happened and why India did so poorly in the war. For general background the Wikipedia article on the Sino-Indian War is worth reading. Among other reports and articles available online are: “Causes of the 1962 Sino-Indian War” by Aldo D. Abitbol; “A Forgotten War in the Himalayas” by Jeff M. Smith,, “The Lessons of the China-India War,” by Brahma Chellaney, “India was whipped in 1962 war, but won the peace,” by Ajai Shukl, and “India-China relations after 50 years of Sino-Indian war,” by Manoj Joshi, . Fifty years later the Indians are still trying to explain what happened and why it was really a victory for India. The Chinese generally ignore the War except in their military command schools where it is still used as a case study. All the essential ingredients for a military debacle were present before, during, and after this conflict. Poor leadership at the highest political levels on the Indian side (Nehru and Menon were particularly inept.) Poor logistics involving transport of soldiers and equipment on the Indian side. Strategic and tical errors (e.g. the Indians refused to use their air forces although the Chinese were incapable of bringing airpower into play in the conflict), etc. But the Indians, particularly the Sikhs were brave and fought well. However, the Indians were out-manned, and the Chinese had the advantage of the high ground. The Chinese had a goal and a plan, and they stuck to it. The Indians had neither. The Chinese were determined to teach the Indians (and their Russian and American friends) a lesson, a simple one, “Don’t mess with us.” They had a very specific goal, to drive the Indians out of territory they felt was theirs, and then to pull back once they had bloodied the Indians’ noses. And that’s what they did. Reading the accounts of the fighting it reads very much like what happened when the Chinese got involved in the Korean War on the side of North Korea. Again, the other side had to be taught a lesson, territorial aggrandizement was not the goal. In summary: the war lasted about a month. It was fought in the Aksai Chin and North-East Frontier Agency area, resulted in a decisive Chinese victory, although India gained about 8,800 sq. km of disputed territory essentially it was a case of status quo ante bellum. The Indians used 10,000—12,000 troops of which 1,400 were killed, 1,000 were wounded, 1,700 are missing and 4,000 were captured. The Chinese used 80,000 troops, of which 722 were killed and 1,700 were wounded. Neither country used sea or air power, although India did request the US send an aircraft carrier to provide aerial support. The war ended before it arrived, if it was even sent. Although the Chinese pulled back, satisfied with the war’s results, in two years they would explode their first atom bomb with help from the Russians, even though Mao had called Khrushchev a traitor for his actions in Cuba and the Sino-Indian War. A year later the first war between Pakistan and India broke out, and China backed Pakistan. Today the numbers are bigger, but the basics are still the same. All three powers (China, India, and Pakistan are armed with nuclear weapons. The Chinese have 4,585,000 men in their military, reserves, and paramilitary forces. The Indians have 4,768,000. Pakistan has 1,343,000. By comparison, the USA has 2,928,000 Again, more current information can be found on Wikipedia or the SIPRI website. The game board in the area is changing quickly, although the land borders between China, India, and Pakistan haven’t changed much. There are still areas of dispute in the east along the peaks of the Himalayas and in the river valleys. Kashmir is still a tinderbox. The Chinese are pouring vast resources into improving the quality of their Army and the size and quality of their Navy and Air Force. Much of their strategy is based on what they call “the string of pearl,” a line of naval bases or berthing rights in the Indian Ocean designed to protect oil supply lines to the Middle East. The Indians have also become major buyers of weapons for their military and are building a domestic weapons manufacturing base. They have also built several new navy bases along the oil shipping routes across the Indian Ocean. Most importantly, the Indians are still preoccupied with Pakistan. Fully eighty percent of their military is focused on Pakistan. although there are reports they are establishing several quick-response brigades in the mountainous north and upgrading some airfields. Still what they are doing seems very little in contrast to the Chinese who, probably because of their fear of what might happen in Tibet and Sinkiang, are building airports and modern railroads through the area. Eighty-five percent of the population of Tibet is now Han Chinese. What does this all suggest? Another future conflict is possible, even probable. Preventing it is a political problem requiring the highest use of diplomatic skills. Skills the Chinese, Indians, and Pakistani don’t seem to possess at the moment. Dramatis Personae:
A memorial to Major Anderson in Florida is being restored and upgraded to explain his role in the Crisis. The Russian ship Kimovsk with its 8 nuclear missiles was the first to turn around and head for home.Today it’s a tramp freighter operating out of St.Petersburg. Today Omar Lopez is a sixty-five year old pig farmer near San Cristobal, Cuba where his family farm was used for the storage of Russian missiles and nuclear warheads. Sepoys Piara Singh and Kewl Singh gave their lives in the Himalayas to save their fellow Sikhs against an overwhelming Chinese attack on their positions. You may have noticed that I mentioned Barbara W. Tuchman’s role as a historian in another article. Let’s close with this thought: In deciding how to respond to Khrushchev, Kennedy was influenced by his reading of “The Guns of August,” Barbara Tuchman’s 1962 account of the origins of WWI. The most important lesson he drew from it was that mistakes and misunderstandings can unleash an unpredictable chain of events, causing governments to go to war with little understanding of the consequences. (Michael Dobbs)
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