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Cuba.
without explicit authorization from Mos- being severed or disrupted.18
For Khrushchev, this episode was es-
cow.14 One further lesson from the Cuban Mis-
pecially unnerving because he initially had
The strictures imposed by the Soviet sile Crisis, which reinforced the perceived
given serious consideration to providing
leadership held up well during the crisis, as need for strict, centralized control over all
Castro with direct command over Soviet
the procedural safeguards for nuclear opera- nuclear operations, was the role that acci-
forces in Cuba, including the nuclear-ca-
tions proved sufficient to forestall any unto- dents played. The most conspicuous in-
pable Frog ( Luna ) missiles and Il-28 air-
ward incidents.15 For the most part, stance came on October 27 when an Ameri-
craft.10 (Only the medium-range SS-4 and
Khrushchev s and Malinovskii s faith in Pliev can U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot
SS-5 missiles would have been left under
was well-founded. Nevertheless, it is clear down over Cuba.19 The rules of engagement
Moscow s command.) As it turned out,
that Pliev wanted to ease some of the proce- for Soviet troops in Cuba did not permit the
COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN 111
WHEN AND WHY ROMANIA York for the opening of the UN General in Romania and offered the United States
DISTANCED ITSELF FROM THE Assembly in the fall of 1963, a routine meet- any opportunity it wished to verify that fact.
WARSAW PACT ing was arranged for October 4. Manescu (The absence of nuclear weapons accorded
then arranged a private meeting with Rusk, with U.S. intelligence, and the United States
by Raymond L. Garthoff attended only by an interpreter. It was the did not pursue the verification offer.)
first opportunity after the crisis nearly a year In view of the sensitivity of the matter,
In April 1964, the Romanian leadership earlier for the Romanian leadership to ap- any knowledge of this exchange was very
issued a declaration in which it first ex- proach the United States government at this closely held in Washington, and no doubt in
pressed public dissatisfaction with the War- level. Bucharest. It was not divulged to NATO
saw Pact. Georghiu Dej, and after 1965 his Manescu told Rusk that Romania had governments. So far as is known, the Soviet
successor Nicolae Ceausescu, increasingly not been consulted over the Soviet decision leadership did not learn of it although that
distanced themselves from the Pact and to place nuclear missiles in Cuba, and was remains to be determined from the Soviet
Moscow s leadership, although without chal- not therefore a party to the dispute. The archives. It did not  leak in thirty years. I
lenging the Soviet Union. Romania ceased Romanian government wanted the United do not know if there is today any written
to participate actively in the military com- States to understand that Romania would account in either American or Romanian
mand of the Warsaw Pact after 1969. All of remain neutral in any conflict generated by archives.
this small slice of history has, of course, such actions as the Soviet deployment of I was told about the exchange by Dean
been well known. It has not been known nuclear missiles in Cuba, and sought assur- Rusk soon after it occurred, and I recon-
why Romania launched itself on that path at ances that in the event of hostilities arising firmed this account of it with him in 1990. It
that particular time. Above all, seemed to me that with the col-
it has not heretofore been known lapse of the Warsaw Pact, the
that even earlier Romania es- overthrow of the Romanian gov-
sentially repudiated its alle- ernment, and the reunification
giance obligations in a secret of Europe, the matter is now
approach to the United States safely history, and should be-
government in October 1963, come a footnote to the historical
promising neutrality in case of record.
the outbreak of war. This was a It may be instructive, as
stunning, unilateral breach of the well as interesting, history. For
central obligation of Warsaw example, as far as I am aware no
Pact alliance membership, which one has ever speculated on a
Romania nominally maintained relationship between the Cuban
until the very end, when the Pact Missile Crisis and the Roma-
dissolved in 1991. nian actions in distancing them-
What precisely happened, selves from the Warsaw Pact. It
and why? The precipitating is also interesting to reflect that
event was the Cuban Missile despite that crisis and other se-
Crisis of October 1962. The vere trials, the two alliances did
tensions generated by that crisis hold together throughout the
had reverberations throughout Cold War, and with relatively
Europe. No country wanted to be brought from such a situation, the Unites States would little evident concern over the risks involved,
into a war over the issue of Soviet missiles in not strike Romania on the mistaken assump- even in other countries hosting nuclear weap-
Cuba. But while members of NATO and the tion that it would be allied with the Soviet ons of the superpowers. Thus, remarkable
Warsaw Pact dutifully gave public support Union in such a war. as was the Romanian case, it was the sole
to the United States and the Soviet Union, Secretary Rusk in response indicated exception to alliance solidarity assuming
respectively, some did so with considerable that the United States would take into ac- the archives or informed officials do not
trepidation. And in Bucharest, the leader- count any country that did not participate in have any other case, on one side or the other,
ship decided after that crisis that it would or permit its territory to be used in military to reveal.
seek to disengage itself from any automatic actions against the United States or its allies.
involvement if their superpower alliance In this connection, he said that it would be Raymond L. Garthoff, a Senior Fellow at the
leader, the Soviet Union, again assumed important for the United States to know Brookings Institution, is a retired Ambassa-
such risks. whether there were nuclear weapons on Ro- dor and a diplomatic historian. He dis-
Romanian-American relations at that manian soil, and that if the United States closed this episode from the history of the
time were minimal. Nonetheless, when were given assurance that there were none, Cold War in remarks at the January 1993
Romanian Foreign Minister Corneliu that fact would be taken into account in U.S. CWIHP Moscow Conference on New Evi-
Manescu asked to meet with the Secretary of targeting. The Romanians subsequently re- dence on Cold War History.
State Dean Rusk, when both were in New sponded that there were no nuclear weapons
112 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN
downing of American planes except those even the Romanian military was eventually of an emergency.25 After the Cuban Missile
carrying out an attack.20 When the U-2 was supplied with nuclear-capable Frog-7 and Crisis, those two agreements were supplanted [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]