(7 of 10)
I was haunted by the knowledge that the Americans could not stomach having Castro's Cuba right next door to them. Sooner or later the U.S. would do something. It had the strength, and it had the means. As they say, might makes right. How were we supposed to strengthen and reinforce Cuba? With diplomatic notes and TASS statements?
The idea arose of placing our missile units in Cuba. Only a narrow circle of people knew about the plan. We concluded that we could send 42 missiles, each with a warhead of one megaton. We picked targets in the U.S. to inflict the maximum damage. We saw that our weapons could inspire terror. The two nuclear weapons the U.S. used against Japan at the end of the war were toys by comparison.
We sent a military delegation to Cuba to inform Fidel about our proposals and get his consent. Castro gave his approval. We wanted to do the whole thing in secret. Our security organs assured us this was possible even though American planes overflew Cuban territory all the time. Supposedly, the palm trees would keep our missiles from being seen from the air. We installed the missiles aboveground because silos would have required too much time to build and we believed there was not much time before the Americans invaded. It was our intention after installing the missiles to announce their presence in a loud voice. They were not meant for attack but as a means of deterring those who would attack Cuba.
The security people turned out to be wrong. The Americans caught us in the act of installing the missiles. In spite of all the uproar, we pushed ahead. When we began shipping the nuclear warheads, I constantly feared they would capture our ships. But they didn't. We installed the 42 missiles.
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko, the Foreign Minister, was in New York City at a United Nations session. He was invited by Secretary of State Dean Rusk to Washington. Our position was neither to confirm nor to deny the presence of missiles, but in answer to a direct question, we would deny. Later we were accused of perfidy and dishonesty. Look who was making this accusation -- the U.S., which had us encircled with its own military bases! We were just copying the methods used by our adversaries. Besides, we had both a legal and moral right to make an agreement with Cuba.
Rusk told Gromyko, "We know everything."
Gromyko answered like a Gypsy who's been caught stealing a horse: "It's not me, and it's not my horse. I don't know anything."
Rusk said, "We'll see this through to the end. Tell Khrushchev we wish we could prevent all this from occurring, but anything may happen." In a word, he exerted pressure on us -- although I wouldn't go so far as to call it a threat; he appealed to us to do something to head off a confrontation.
I told my comrades, "We've achieved our goal. Maybe the Americans have learned their lesson. Now they have the time to think it over and weigh the consequences."
Kennedy was a clever President. I still regard him with great respect. He understood that in spite of the American advantages, the missiles we had already installed could strike New York City, Washington and other centers.